


Something About Us

by obstinatrix, seutedeern



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Erik is a Father, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-03-31 10:54:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3975421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/pseuds/obstinatrix, https://archiveofourown.org/users/seutedeern/pseuds/seutedeern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The old fashioned Strangers-on-a-Train idea has always seemed like an Old Hollywood myth to Charles, who's never really spared any random strangers more than a passing glance during his commutes to and from school. Nobody really meets people like that these days. </p><p>Except that, now he finds himself looking forward to his morning train ride and the chance to have a chat with the handsome man who only approached him because of the book he was reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We have ticked the 'underage' tag on this fic because Charles is under 18. However, he is not in fact, at any point in this story, below the legal age of consent in the state he is living in.

It was a foggy, slightly clammy Thursday morning when Charles properly saw him for the first time. It was just a brief glimpse, nothing more, as he glanced up from his book at the mention of his station approaching. The eye-contact lasted for less than three seconds, and while it was enough to make Charles forget his still sleep-encrusted eyes, heavy with tiredness, he didn't waste more than a thought or two on those sharp features and striking eyes after he'd exited the train.

The truth was, these days, Charles Xavier had far too much to think about. Sometimes it felt as if his brain was in danger of shorting out under the pressure of too much rubbish: ever since his father's death two years before, things had all been falling steadily into a massive pit of crap. Figuratively speaking, of course. Charles's mother had responded to the news of Brian's unanticipated debts with gallons of red wine, and Charles couldn't find it in himself to really blame her. They'd both lived in the lap of luxury for fifteen years, after all, and being jolted out of that so abruptly was horrifying. The whiplash had lasted months. Even afterwards, it had left a dull ache behind, the space where Brian had been gaping wider with the weight of all the unexpected problems his death had created.

At least, Sharon had said, all Charles's school fees had been paid for in advance. Charles's morning commute stayed the same: bus, then train, then a brief walk. Nothing had changed there, despite everything else collapsing around the Xaviers. 

Until this man, of course. Charles didn't remember the first time he'd caught a glimpse of him in passing -- he hadn't had the energy to spare to pay him much attention the first time he'd been fully aware of him. But all the same, as time wore on, he couldn't deny that the man with the steady pale eyes was a man worth noticing.

The next time he saw him was a bleary Monday. Charles didn’t notice him straight away -- not with the way the wind was blowing cold, sharp air into his face, making his skin feel tight and fragile. It was that annoying time of the year when winter slowly slipped into spring, and the weather stayed dull and grey most of the time with the occasional sunny interim. It was depressing. People stood close to each other, subconsciously huddled in groups in order to keep away the worst of the weather’s moods. Charles, however, stood slightly apart, nose buried in his book, scarf pulled half-up his face. He had forgotten his gloves at home, and now the skin between his fingers had turned slightly chapped. He hated it.

Suddenly, there was an announcement ( _The next train at platform three will be delayed by fifteen minutes. We apologise for the inconvenience._ ) at which Charles lifted up his head -- as if it could sharpen his hearing -- and he rolled his eyes along with a groan of dismay, unrestrained by the presence of bystanders. Except, as Charles noticed a moment later, he wasn't actually alone. The same man who had briefly caught his interest a few days ago, a few paces away, uttered something under his breath along with a sharp click of his tongue. Charles shared that sentiment of utter annoyance. He smiled wryly.

Much too late, Charles noticed the side-glance the stranger was giving him; all the same, he threw him a sympathetic smile. Reluctantly, the stranger replied with a tight-lipped smile with raised eyebrows -- _I know, right?_

Once they were inside the train, seated in respectfully different locations, Charles didn’t pay any more thought to the man, except for the underlying amusement about random interaction with others when the public services create a ground for collective hatred. Nothing brings people together, after all, like disgruntled irritation with the trains. Now, there was a slogan for a political campaign -- at least people would respect the truth of it. North Eastern Rail: Annoying People, Man and Boy! Charles and the stranger would make an excellent illustration for the poster. 

Not that Charles had felt much like a boy lately. His mother's drinking habit had been getting worse, rather than better, and most of the time, Charles was the adult in the house, not her. He might shuttle to and fro in school uniform on the train, but when he got home, it was his duty to make dinner and pick up whatever debris littered the house. Idly, Charles wondered who made dinner for the man on the train -- if he had a soft warm wife to go home to, maybe a son Charles's age to take his coat and welcome him home. He looked about the same age Charles's father had been, a well-preserved man in his late forties. 

Then Charles's stop was announced, and it was time for the brisk walk to school, and all ponderings about the stranger were put out of his mind. 

It was a couple of weeks before he saw him again. This time, they hadn't encountered each other on the platform; Charles was seated already when the man came into his carriage, a little out of breath, and claimed the seat immediately opposite Charles's. He was tall; their knees brushed when he took his seat, and the man apologised curtly in an accent Charles couldn't quite place. 

"It's okay," Charles said, and smiled. The man smiled back, just barely, the corners of his mouth drawing up. There were crinkles around his eyes, laugh lines. One might have called the face a hard face, but Charles didn't read it that way. There was a warmth to this man, however buried, and Charles liked it. As the train continued its journey, Charles couldn’t help but sneak glances at the stranger opposite him. The man had just opened his newspapers and flicked through the pages, oblivious of Charles’s eyes looking curiously at him. This was the sort of man Charles hoped he could grow up to be at the same age -- sharp-looking, well-preserved and apparently in a job position that would not allow any financial worries. With a sigh, he averted his gaze and continued going through his vocabularies for the upcoming test this morning.

When it was time for him to get off the train, he gave a small smile to the stranger who acknowledged this with a nod.

These days, school wasn't a place Charles especially liked to be. It was a private school of the sort attended by the children of the nouveau riche and the hugely successful professional types; Charles had never felt particularly at home there even before his father's death. Now, he felt like an imposter, every day a constant struggle to keep the Xavier private affairs private. Meanwhile, the other boys in his year were all getting girlfriends and growing six inches, and Charles was still short and freckled and not terribly interested in girls, however hard he tried to be. 

The man on the train had probably never had that kind of trouble. Charles imagined him as the sort of boy who could have ruled the school at sixteen, long limbs and lithe muscle and that face...

Sometimes, it crossed Charles's mind that there might be a very straightforward reason why he wasn't all that interested in girls, but he wasn't ready to go there. Not yet.

As the days passed by, he fell into a strange sort of morning routine. There were moments when he unintentionally found himself looking around in the hope of, perhaps, catching a glimpse of that stranger who somehow had managed to catch his interest without having really done anything except for rolling his eyes and giving him a thin smile. Charles was giddy with anticipation and smiled nervously if The Man happened to show up. And when he didn’t, the disappointment Charles felt, was enough to have him in a grumpy mood for the next few hours. (Usually, it lasted until lunch time.)

At least his mother hadn’t made any comments yet on how he needed more time in the bathroom every morning -- he was seventeen, after all. A young man just starting to take an interest in the way he looked, and Charles was almost sure that his mother was hoping he was starting to get interested in girls as well.

Charles didn't much want to imagine what Sharon would say if she knew it wasn't girls he wanted to look good for. He didn't even understand it himself, this peculiar desire to -- what? To impress a perfect stranger? It was nonsensical, and yet Charles had peered surreptitiously at the man's left hand and felt a flush of giddy pleasure to see the ring finger was bare. As if it made any difference; Charles was being ridiculous, but the fantasy was pleasant, and harmless. 

Looking out for The Stranger in the mornings had become almost second nature, but when Charles glanced up from his study notes on the train home and caught sight of the familiar slender figure, he almost swallowed his chewing gum in surprise. The man never came home on this train, but it was definitely him, unmistakable.

At this time of the day, the train was still fairly empty. Just the occasional fellow classmate, stray students or tourists were with him. The man’s slender figure on the train seemed alien now.

He knew he was staring, he _fucking_ knew it but he couldn’t stop himself; the man was headed straight towards his seat -- to be fair, Charles was sitting in a four-seater that was otherwise completely free -- and sat down opposite him, albeit on the aisle’s side. When the man briefly raised an eyebrow at him with a flash of recognition in his eyes, Charles’s quick and witty way of replying was to smile sheepishly, then fumble with his school bag as though he had Terribly Important Business to do. Clearing his throat in an overly dramatic fashion was something he at least managed to keep himself from doing. The man, however, didn’t pay much attention to him. And that made it easier for him to shake off the ridiculous feeling of _showing off_ , even though he wasn’t entirely sure what on earth he could possibly do in order to get the other’s attention.

The stations passed by, Charles had calmed down a little -- at least enough to get back to studying. There was not much use in scanning through his German textbook while that person was so unexpectedly close to him but he thought it might be worth a try, even if only to distract himself a little. He read out a paragraph under his breath, voice quiet, hoping that it would help him to understand the poem a little better. Until --

“It’s _Röslein_ , not _Roslein_.”

Charles blinked, not trusting his ears. He glanced up, and the man was looking back at him, a poorly hidden amused smile on his lips.

“Sorry?” His voice came out as an awkward croak.

“You pronounce it wrong,” he said. Charles couldn’t believe what was happening when the man recited the same sentence he had just said, only in perfect, accent-free German, “ _Knabe sprach: ‘Ich breche dich, Röslein auf der Heiden!’”_

Despite himself, Charles found that he was smiling. "You sound like a native!" 

"I ought to," said the stranger easily. "I was born and raised in Düsseldorf." 

Charles's eyebrows went up. This, he had not expected. The man's English was perfect; it carried, if anything, something of an English accent, but Charles wouldn't have thought the man German. His intrigue overpowered his shyness. 

"You're German, really?" 

The man shrugged, the corner of his mouth quirking. "I imagine you're now thinking you might have found the perfect solution for any homework woes you might encounter, hmm?" 

The tone of the man's voice was light, almost teasing, and Charles cursed his pale skin with its tendency to blush. He cleared his throat. "I wouldn't dream of imposing, Mr..." 

"Lehnsherr." He held out a hand, slender fingers and long palm. "Erik Lehnsherr. And you are...?" 

"Oh." It felt odd to introduce himself this way, like a grown up. "Charles Xavier. You're not normally on this train." 

Immediately, he panicked that his comment was too forward, but Erik didn't seem to mind. The name suited him, Charles thought, as the man opened his mouth and laughed, sharp teeth and sharp jaw. When the laughter had passed, Erik said, "Good eye, Charles. No, I'm leaving the office early today. An unusual occurrence." 

Questions billowed up in the back of Charles's mind. Too many - he stamped them down, along with the odd dizzy feeling of something surreal to this exchange, at last. Composing himself, Charles said, "You came here to work, then?"

“Yes and no,” Erik began but was interrupted by an announcement that they train had arrived at Westchester Station. They looked at each other, and Charles knew he had to get off now.

“I’m sorry, but…”

“Don’t worry, it’s also my station.”

Charles blinked. “Oh.”

Erik smiled thinly, then folded his newspapers. Charles hurried to cram his textbook back into his school bag as well. When he got up from his seat, he nearly bumped into the other man but Erik stepped aside elegantly just in time, and Charles felt more clumsy than usual. So much for leaving a good impression on that man.

Once outside on the platform, there was a brief uncomfortable moment during which Charles fumbled with his coat. What should he do now? Repeat his question from earlier? Say goodbye? Or just leave?

“Do you live close to the station?” Erik suddenly asked, and Charles was quietly grateful that the decision had been taken off his shoulders.

“No,” he said. “I’ve got to take the bus. And you?”

“Bike.” Erik waved his keys in front of Charles’s face.

Charles bit his lip, feeling like a stupid schoolgirl even as he did it. “Not far, then?”

“Not too far,” Erik said, indicating the bicycle racks with an expansive wave of his hand.

“I suppose I'll see you tomorrow.”

Erik laughed softly. “I'm sure you will.”

All the way home, Charles was flushed, kicking himself for his stupidity. Erik thought he was an idiot, probably, and for some reason, Charles cared. Erik was so handsome, like an old fashioned army officer, with his stiff backed poise and his steady pale eyes. Charles wanted his approval; he wanted that smile again. 

God, Erik was just a bloke on the train. This was...fucked up. 

It was the following Monday before they met again. Charles had spent the weekend promising himself to _be cool_ if he should see Erik again, and yet here he was, stuttering over his hello when Erik folded himself down into the seat next to Charles and said, “Morning, Mr Xavier.” 

The warm timbre of his voice was like a tease, skipping down Charles's spine. Charles swallowed. There was no more denying the way Erik made him feel. He supposed this was what was meant by a Sexual Awakening: a handsome older man coming into one's life to stir it up irrevocably. He cleared his throat. 

“Happy Monday, Mr Lehnsherr.”

“Hmm.” Erik looked amused. "We should be so lucky.”

“Indeed.”

“Do you hate Mondays as much as I do?”

“Yes, especially when teachers force me to sit exams."

“My deepest condolences.” Erik looked terribly honest about this, as though he still remembered exactly what it was like to try and get one’s brain working in the early morning hours when faced with difficult tasks for a three-hour test. That, however, had probably happened for the last time over twenty-five years ago. “What are you being tested on?”

“Part of it will very likely be the poem I read the other day.”

“Oh, _Goethe_.” The man sighed wistfully. “It amazes me that they also torture pupils in other countries with him. I’ve already had my fair share of writing essays on his works.” Erik's speaking patterns, Charles observed, were a little odd here and there, but fluent, particular to him. Charles decided he liked it. 

“Were you good?”

“Quite, but I hated it.”

"I don't mind it," Charles said, honestly. "I quite enjoy German." 

"Ah," Erik said, "now you're just trying to butter me up." His smile was almost coy, and Charles felt himself going pink. Buttering Erik up, indeed. He could picture it quite easily. Erik was probably slender as a lat under his nicely cut suit, all lean muscles and narrow waist and...

"Charles?" 

Charles shook the thoughts away guiltily and cleared his throat. "No, honestly!" he protested. "Science is what I like best, really, but languages are okay." 

Erik crossed his long legs casually. "A man of many talents then?" 

Charles bit his lip on a grin. "Sort of. What do you do?" 

"Oh, this and that." Erik shrugged. "I fall somewhere between an engineer and an architect these days, I suppose. My actual job title is ridiculous; I refuse to be associated with it." 

A long beat passed before Charles realised that they were both just...smiling at each other. God, but Erik was handsome. Probably -- no, certainly the best looking human being Charles had ever seen in real life. Being the focus of his attention was like staring into the sun. A week ago, Charles had still been denying it to himself, but he couldn't any longer; the strength of his crush was too palpable. The man was probably older than Charles's father had been, but that was all right. That made it a safe fantasy. After all, there was no way this gorgeous older man could possibly see Charles as anything more than an annoying schoolboy. Sad though that was. 

“About that poem --” Erik then began, and now he leaned slightly forward, posture unexpectedly business-like. “Just keep in mind that the most obvious interpretation of it is that it’s about a boy disgracing a girl.”

“You mean rape?”

“Yes.” Erik made a face. “Such a lovely poem that seems so innocent, but there you go.”

"The textbook says he was criticised for being a bit...well, erotic, for the time," Charles said. (Oh God, was he really initiating a conversation with this man about eroticism in the works of Goethe? This was not how Charles had expected his morning to go.) 

"Oh, certainly." Erik shifted in his chair. "He was gay, you know, allegedly. Or possibly in love with his sister, according to some people. Or both." 

Charles almost choked on the mouthful of water he'd just swigged from his bottle, and his voice came out as a rather unmanly squeak. "Really?" 

"I've got a book about it somewhere at home. Love letters to his friends and bits from Faust about boys'...assets. You can borrow it, if you like. Sensationalist speculation, mostly, but you could practise your German reading on it." Erik smirked a little, and Charles felt himself flushing. Erik was just enjoying Charles's embarrassment at this point, he could tell. Naive little schoolboy, flustered over his German homework. 

"Thank you," Charles squeaked, and Erik nodded acknowledgement. 

"Let me know how the test goes." 

"I will," Charles promised. 

The test went about as well as could be expected. On the train home, Charles found his eyes seeking Erik hopefully, but apparently today was just another Monday in Erik's office, and leaving early had not been an option. Charles leaned against the window and tried to pretend he wasn't disappointed.


	2. Chapter 2

To Erik, airports always seemed surrounded by a certain sense of giddy anticipation. Either people were waiting for their flights to depart, or for their loved ones to arrive. Strangers scuttled around, rushing towards security, their terminals, always in a hurry. Erik quite enjoyed watching people walk briskly past him while he could just sit on a bench and wait.

As he glanced at his watch, he noticed that almost an hour had gone by since he had arrived. If the flight wasn’t delayed, it would be only a matter of minutes until she was here. How long had it been? One year? Two years? He couldn’t remember. While he was grateful for the internet and the great invention that was Skype, he still hadn’t got used to the fact that his ex-wife had taken their kids back home to Germany. The occasional chat via webcam wasn’t sufficient in the slightest; it didn’t offer any sort of physical affection he might have wanted to express at some melancholic point, whenever he was feeling terribly lonely. Since Magda he hadn’t really had anyone ever again. And having his children taken away from him was just one more thing to drag down the dull, work-controlled life of a single man in his late forties.

But now things were looking up -- at least for two weeks. His oldest daughter was going to visit him while she was on school holiday. And, maybe, she would stay here if she found a college she liked. Erik could hope after all…

“Papa!”

Lost in thought, he almost missed her voice calling out to him. He turned, eyes searching for the source of the sound, and then --

"Anya!" He was on his feet in an instant, arms outstretched, and she ran into them, flinging her whole weight at him. Parents weren't supposed to have favourites, but Anya had always been his baby, his daddy's girl, the thing that let him believe for years that marrying Magda had been a good idea. Not that she was a baby any more. At eighteen, she was suddenly far more womanly than he was comfortable with, reminding him starkly of her mother at a similar age. When Erik could force himself to let go, he took her by the arms and looked at her searchingly. "Are you wearing lipstick?" 

Anya rolled her eyes and swatted his arm. "Papa! Honestly. I should have known that would be the first thing you'd say to me." But she smiled up at him, and Erik smiled back. 

"I'm your dad, it's my job. Your funny accent's gone, though, I'm glad to hear. I was starting to worry about you speaking German like an American." 

"Ha ha." Anya slipped her arm through his and squeezed. "You'll be responsible for keeping it that way, then, if I do come here for college." 

"A responsibility I gladly accept," Erik said. Impulsively, he hugged her again. Into her hair, he said, "I'm so glad to see you, Kätzchen." 

"Me too, Papa," Anya said, and squeezed him back. 

A lot had changed since Magda and the kids had left. Erik had a new car (Anya pronounced it 'cool', high praise from a teenager) and a new apartment, which he was less sure she'd approve of. The neighbourhood was nice enough, Anya making approving comments as they drove through it, but the apartment was a lot smaller than their family house had once been. The divorce had been more amicable than most, but still, Magda had a relocation to Germany to be paid for, plus alimony for three children. 

"So, how are the twins?" Erik asked casually. They were getting close to his apartment block now; it seemed important to fill the air with something. 

Anya shrugged. "Fine. They're six, I mean...it's not too hard to be six, I guess." 

Erik made generic noises of agreement. In truth, Erik wasn't sure how Pietro and Wanda had even happened -- he and Magda hadn't exactly been having a lot of sex by that point in the marriage. They'd been so small still when the divorce happened...it was weird, like they hadn't really been people then, and now they were. Erik wished he could see more of them growing up, but milking it out of Anya seemed like the next best thing. 

All the way up in the elevator, Erik was nervous, but Anya's face when she saw his apartment made that dissipate swiftly enough. 

"Papa, it's gorgeous!" 

Erik glowed with quiet pride. Even if this was only a vacation for his daughter, it was going to be a good one.

*

“You know there’s nothing in the fridge, right?”

“That’s not true.”

“Okay, there are only _protein shakes_.” Anya made a face which clearly indicated how displeased she was with Erik’s current household situation. They both had been away all day long, visiting different possible colleges that weren’t too far away from where Erik lived. Now that they were back home, starving and exhausted, it was more than understandable that protein shakes and some old fruit in Erik’s fridge didn’t seem too appealing.

“You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m not.” She waved a bottle demonstratively in front of his face. “I’m hungry.”

Erik sighed. “Fine. Maybe the supermarket down the road is still open. It shouldn’t be too late yet.”

“Either it’s that or we’ll order…” Anya drifted off with a sing-song. And Erik knew when to take a hint.

"I'm on a diet," he muttered pathetically. 

"Yeah, manorexia caused by chronic laziness in the kitchen." She thrust the phone into his hand. "Please, Papa? I miss the kind of pizza that's at least four heart attacks on a plate." 

"The American dream," Erik sighed, but he was already dialling. 

Back when they'd all lived together, pizza had been a Friday night treat, but Erik couldn't remember the last time he'd ordered it. If he was going to order takeout for himself, he'd go for Chinese, every time. Still, the pizza from their local was good, from what he remembered. 

"Half an hour," he told Anya, as he hung up, and she grinned victoriously. 

Thirty eight minutes later (Erik always kept exact count of these things) the doorbell rang. He was ready to give the delivery man an earful as he hated waiting and showed a tendency towards getting exceptionally grumpy when hungry, but Anya was quicker than him to answer the door.

“I’m terribly sorry for the delay. My scooter refused to cooperate and that’s why it took me so long.”

“It’s only eight minutes, don’t worry.”

“Oh. Well. All right then.”

The accent was distinctly English. Erik’s ears pricked up at the sound of the delivery man’s -- or boy’s? -- voice, and he joined his daughter by the door only… only to be met by the startling sight of the teenager he had seen so often on the train each morning.

Charles was a pizza delivery boy.

Correction: Charles was _his_ pizza delivery boy.

“Hiya,” Charles said, then immediately flushed as though he thought what an inappropriate thing to say _hiya_ was. Erik found himself fighting down the urge to smile fondly.

"Hello, Charles. This is an unexpected surprise." 

"I, um. Yes, this is my weekend job." Charles cleared his throat and then, as if having just remembered why he was here in the first place, thrust the pizza box in Erik's direction. "You want to check your pizza? I checked it before I left but, you know..." 

"I'm sure it's fine," Erik said, taking the box. Charles's babbling was rather adorable...but Erik couldn't help but notice the way his eyes kept straying curiously to Anya, hovering at his side. 

Great. Charles From The Train had designs on his daughter and Erik was going to have to kill him. 

Setting the pizza box down on the hall table, Erik reached for his wallet. "How much do I owe you?" 

"Oh -- um, $15.99." 

Erik handed over a twenty and Charles's hands went to the little pouch he wore around his waist, blunt-tipped fingers seeking out the right change. For a moment, he actually looked quite competent, up until he pulled out his fistful of coins and promptly dropped half of them all over the floor. "Here you g-- oh, bugger." 

Scarlet, Charles went to pick them up, but Erik was already bending on instinct, and the next second their shoulders collided jarringly and Charles looked as if he wanted to melt through the floor. 

"God, I'm sorry," he said miserably as he gathered up coins. He looked so pathetic with his little pizza boy cap all askew, Erik took pity on him. 

"Shhh, it's okay, no harm done. I think we've got all of it." Straightening, Erik waited for Charles to stand before reaching over and tucking the coins into Charles's pouch. "Here, keep the change." 

“I can’t really accept that, honestly --”

“I _insist_.” He knew he was using his Strict Father Voice, which he hadn’t used for at least seven years, but it seemed to work on this boy. Anya, however, was giving him a strange look. Erik couldn’t decide whether she was amused or worried.

“Uhm. All right, then.” Meekly, Charles zipped up his pouch. “I hope you’ll enjoy your pizza. I’m sorry if it's a bit cold.”

Once he was gone, Anya raised a curious eyebrow. “What was _that_?”

“Hm?” Erik was only half listening; he was starving and the sounds his stomach was making were more than worrying.

“The boy. Charles? Do you know him?”

He took out two plates for their pizzas (he didn’t like eating from cartons), and filled them. “Oh, yeah. I see him every once in a while on my way to work.”

“Aha.” _Aha_ was something her mother had always liked to say whenever she was sceptical of something. He wasn’t sure how he felt about his daughter sounding so much like Magda. In the past, it had tended to piss him off. Massively. Her little statement of disbelief made it sound as though -- as though there was _more_ to it. Still, Erik didn’t feel like putting up an argument now just to see what his daughter might have been insinuating (or not), and so he just handed her one of the plates and told her to pick a film to watch.

“ _Die Hard_ or _Terminator_?” she asked, holding up the DVDs, and with a sigh of relief, Erik saw that she was still his girl who knew him best.

*

“Papa?”

“Hm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” He shot her side-glance. Anya was seated on the armchair next to his couch, limbs lazily stretched out across it as though she was a cat. Right now, however, she looked a little squirmy, a little nervous.

“That boy from earlier…”

“Charles.”

“Yeah. How old do you think he is?”

“I… I don’t know?” He had never really thought about it. Charles seemed more grown-up than other people his age. Whatever that might be. “He’s about as old as you, I suppose.”

“Aha.”

There it was again. And Erik sighed. “Come on, Anya, stop beating around the bush.”

“Okay, okay, I just thought he was _cute_ , all right? Jesus.” Her face was flushed, beet red.

Oh, God. Erik sighed. "I should have known." 

"What!" Anya's voice rose defensively. "He's a nice boy, isn't he?" 

"No boy on earth is nice enough for my daughter," Erik said firmly. Anya rolled her eyes. 

"You needn't come over all Shotgun Dad about it, I know you're not really that old-fashioned. And I probably won't see him again anyway. I was just _saying_." 

"Aha," Erik said, deliberately imitating Magda's tone, just for the look on Anya's face. 

The subject was put aside in favour of other things, but later that night, when he was lying in bed, thoughts were creeping back into Erik's brain under cover of darkness. One thing he knew for certain: the idea of Anya dating Charles made him...not happy. He wasn't sure _why_ \-- he certainly was a nice kid, sweet and intelligent and more than a little bit innocent. If anyone was going to be doing any corrupting in that scenario, Erik would be willing to bet on Anya, rather than the other way round. Yes, Charles was actually, for once, pretty acceptable boyfriend material. 

The weird part was, if Anya had happened to meet Charles on a train and then had introduced him to Erik, Erik probably wouldn't have had a problem with it. There was just -- a certain sense of _he was my friend first_. Which was ridiculous, because Erik was a divorced professional man in his late forties and Charles was a schoolboy still struggling with Goethe, and they were not _friends_. But there was no accounting for the odd ways the mind worked, sometimes. 

Even if Charles was, as Anya said, pretty cute. 

"Stop being such an old pervert, Lehnsherr," he muttered to himself, snorting a laugh in the dark, and rolled over, pulling the covers up around his shoulders. It would sort itself out. His mind was just making mountains out of molehills. 

Although, apparently, he wasn’t entirely alone in this.

He was granted only three days off work during Anya’s visit, and while he would have rather stayed home to spend the entire day with his daughter, work and money were a necessity. Anya didn’t hold a grudge at least.

 _I can sleep in late and snoop around in your apartment while you’re gone. It’s okay,_ she had reassured him. It didn’t necessarily help him to feel better about working all day long but he knew she’d busy herself, probably with college applications.

All previous thoughts concerning his daughter finding his train acquaintance _cute_ had vanished during these three days, and he didn’t entertain them any further until he was on his train to work, comfortably seated with the newspapers open, ready to be read, and a distinctly accented voice greeted him with a hesitant _Hello_.

There he was, looking just as fidgety as he had on Erik’s doorstep in his little delivery boy hat. Anya’s voice was back in his head, _I just thought he was cute_. Erik swallowed drily.

“Hello, Charles. How are you?”

“Good, good,” the boy said, then glanced at the seat next to Erik’s which was currently occupied by his suitcase. “Mind if I..?”

“No! No, no, of course not.” Quickly, he removed it, feeling very much like a selfish asshole for blocking the seat in the first place, and Charles sat down next to him with a small sigh of relief and an apologetic smile for him.

“I haven’t seen you around lately,” he remarked with a voice which sounded a tiny bit too aloof for Erik’s taste, but then, perhaps he was imagining things.

“I was on holiday, yes. You know, I currently have a visitor staying with me --”

“Oh, your girlfriend, right?”

Erik was so bemused that it took him a moment even to find the breath to laugh. "Anya? My girlfriend?" 

Charles frowned. "It seemed a reasonable thing to assume..." 

"How old did you think she was, Charles?" Erik was shaking his head in amusement. 

Charles shrugged. "I don't know: about my age?" 

"And you didn't think it would be really creepy of me to date someone your age?" 

"Not really, no." Charles had gone distinctly pink. "Age is just a number. I won't judge you." 

Erik decided to put the boy out of his misery. "Anya is my eldest daughter, Charles. She lives in Germany with her mother, but she's thinking of coming back here for college." 

"Oh," Charles said, even pinker now. "I see." 

A flash of the other night came back to Erik, Anya blushing just the way Charles was now. "Have you got a girlfriend, then?" Just checking.

“I -- Uh, I-I don’t. No.”

“Not right now or…?”

“Haven’t had a relationship yet.” Charles gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I still have a few things to work out, I suppose.”

Erik hummed, nodding his head slowly. He really couldn’t understand _why_ but -- “The right one will come along eventually. You’re only -- what? Eighteen?”

“Seventeen.”

“You’re still young, there’s still plenty of time left until it gets weird.”

“Hey!” Charles laughed out, his voice indignant, and for a moment it seemed as though he was contemplating throwing a fake punch Erik’s shoulder before he remembered his manners, and restrained himself to clicking his tongue and shaking his head like a disapproving auntie. “Maybe I’m just very dedicated to school.”

“Like most teenage boys I assume?”

“Well, I’m not like _most boys_ , then.”

There was something in the way Charles was looking at him, amusement in his eyes but also a playful seriousness, softened by the light curve of his smile. And all Erik could do in that moment was to agree; Charles wasn’t like most boys, he was quite unique.

When it was time for Charles to get off the train, Erik’s gaze followed him until he was out of sight entirely, swallowed up by the crowd.

_He’s younger than Anya._

Christ.

He wasn't sure why it should matter, if Charles was just some kid he chatted with casually on his morning commute. All the same, Erik carried the thought with him all the way to work, the memory of Charles flushing pink under his freckles and the shy curve of his smile, like a secret meant for Erik to keep. 

*

Erik made a mean risotto. He couldn't remember exactly when he'd learned, or who taught him, and he hadn't done a whole lot of cooking over the past couple of years, but he had his daughter here now, and that provided a certain degree of motivation. Besides, there was something soothing about how involving the whole process was, the slow addition of stock to the pot, the constant stirring motion, that kept Erik's mind off other issues. Like the fact that Charles had been conspicuously missing from the morning train for the past couple of days; and moreover, the fact that Erik had noticed. The fact that he actually _missed_ him, just a little bit. 

It wasn't too weird, he supposed, as he reached over to add salt to the pot. Erik had never had a lot of friends. He wasn't a gregarious person, and apparently there was something disconcerting about the way his face got when he was minding his own business with a book. Anya called it his 'Concentration Frown', and Erik had to admit that was a fair description. Erik, for whatever reason, put people off. But Charles -- he hadn't had that effect on Charles. And over the weeks, Erik had become used to a little bit of mental stimulation in the mornings, a little bit of human contact with someone who wasn't a coworker or a family member. It was only natural that, having come to anticipate it, it should feel disappointing to be denied.

Still. Erik shook himself and returned his attention to the pot. The rice was thickening nicely now, butter-yellow chunks of squash caramelising slowly. Erik felt his mouth begin to water sympathetically. Anya had been away all day at some big event at the local university, the sort with mock lectures and meet-the-professor sessions and all that kind of modern shit. (Erik's first day at university had been the first time he'd ever set foot in the place, having effectively just chosen it at random out of a brochure.) He had no doubt that she'd be getting something out of it, but he also hoped she'd be home within the next few minutes, before Erik caved to the pressure of his stomach and ate the entire pot of risotto himself.

Fortunately, it seemed Erik wasn't the only one being guided by his stomach right now. The risotto was just reaching perfection when the door banged open and Anya clattered in, throwing down her satchel on the settee and yelling, "I'm home!" 

"So I see," Erik said, smiling despite himself as he turned to look at her. "It's only a little apartment, you know, Anya; I can hear you just fine." 

"I was distracted," Anya said, coming over to claim a hug. "I could smell food, all the way home, and I'm _starving_." She peered over his shoulder into the pot. "Oh my God, you made risotto?" 

Erik may have only been able to make one proper dish, but it was one his kids always appreciated. He kissed the top of Anya's head and smiled. "I thought you'd be happy. Now, if you put out the plates, we can actually eat it." 

The sign of good food and hungry people, Erik's mother always said, was silence at the dinner table. He and Anya were quiet for the first few minutes of gratefully stuffing their faces before Anya jerked up suddenly, as if a thought had just hit her, and said, "Oh!" 

"Oh?" Erik grinned at her across the table and speared another cube of squash. "Oh, what?" 

"I almost forgot -- guess who I saw at the university today." Anya smirked in a way that suggested she didn't expect Erik to actually guess, so he pulled a thoughtful face for a second and then suggested, 

"I don't know -- Richard Gere? Winnie the Pooh?" 

"Uh-uh." Anya kicked him under the table and grinned. "Charles the pretty pizza boy, actually." 

That certainly was a surprise.

“At uni? But he’s only seventeen, what was he doing there?”

She stuffed another forkful of risotto into her mouth before she answered. “I think he said he’s going to graduate early or something like that. I was too intimidated by his marks to ask more.”

“Are they that good?”

“Terrifyingly good, Papa.”

Her grave sigh had him feeling sorry for her. “Don’t be intimidated, Schätzchen, you’re the smartest person I know.”

“Yeah, apart from _Charles._ ”

“Apparently,” he agreed, grinning, and Anya huffed out in protest.

“By the way, he told me to say _hello_ to you.”

Erik quickly reached for his water just so he could keep himself from blurting out something stupid. Instead, he eventually asked, “Did you ask him out?” He knew Anya was bold enough to take the first step; she truly took after him as he wasn’t exactly shy either. And Charles… Well, he seemed like the sort of person who’d need a push into the right direction before he’d come out of his shell. Or at least for now.

Anya laughed. "Yeah, I might have floated the idea in his direction. He shot me down, though." 

"He what?" Erik could feel the thunderclouds gathering on his brow. Charles dating his daughter was an uncomfortable enough thought, but how dare the little punk turn Anya down? Anya was perfect. She was his daughter after all. 

Anya seemed to have read the look on Erik's face, judging by her fond smile. “Papa, Charles is _gay_. I thought he was too cute to be straight, but a girl can dream.” She shrugged. “He's shorter than me anyway, so I suppose it's lucky he didn't say yes. That would have looked weird.”

Erik blinked slowly. Charles was pretty short, but his head was still ringing with Anya's previous comment. “He's _gay_?”

She rolled her eyes. “You needn't act so surprised. It's not like you of all people are homophobic.”

He wasn't sure how much she knew on that score. He wouldn't be surprised if she'd figured out that her father wasn't exactly straight. But that was beside the point. The idea of shy little Charles turning a girl down like that didn't seem possible. “He told you?”

Anya shrugged. “Not straight out. There was some rambling about figuring things out, and if he were to date a girl, and how flattered he was, but that's what he meant.” 

“Damn right, he should be flattered,” Erik muttered, but something uncomfortably like interest had stirred in his stomach. Charles's big, earnest eyes, and that mouth... 

He shook himself. That was not anywhere he was going to let his mind go.


	3. Chapter 3

A deep frown was etched onto his features as Charles mentally calculated how many more months he would have to work at that godforsaken pizza place until he’d have the money to go to his desired university -- scholarship and the last remaining dollars of his trust fund included. His mother had never been too shy about taking money from that particular pot whenever they had been short, when bills had been overdue, and Charles had felt awful about wanting enough money to go to a prestigious university while his mother struggled to pay their bills. It was certain that he would be stuck at his job until his graduation. At least.

“You look a little worried.”

The sound of Erik’s voice was startling; Charles hadn’t even noticed the other man had taken the seat across from his, too absorbed in the horror vision of having to work for Mr. di Lorenzo until he was an old, probably bald codger just because he wanted to go on to college after high school.

“Morning." He smiled, albeit half-hearted. “I didn’t notice you, I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right,” Erik replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Are you okay, though?”

“Yeah, I just…” He made a sound of frustration, raking a hand through his hair. "I was just thinking about my future. That’s all.”

Erik chewed on his bottom lip as he stared at the little notebook in Charles’s lap. Numbers were scribbled all over it in his chicken scratch handwriting, numbers that made it all too clear he didn't have enough money to even think about going to university for at least another year. Charles wanted to cry at the mere thought of it. Not because he was particularly sad -- patience was a virtue -- but he _hated_ his current job, hated working for Mr. di Lorenzo who always dished out insults as though they were on the menu, and Charles had the tendency to be, frankly, a whiny pissbaby. (That was what his sister Raven preferred to call him at least, and after years of hearing this, he was bound to believe it at some point after all.)

“If you need any help… I mean. Obviously we don’t know each other that well, but I’m just saying. If there’s anything I can help you with, I’d be happy to try.” Erik looked earnest enough as he said this, and Charles found himself strangely touched by his offer.

“You don’t happen to know how I can magically gain knowledge about finances before it’s time for me to go to university, do you?”

“Well,” Erik folded his delicate hands in his lap, smiled thinly at Charles with his head slightly cocked. “I more or less own my own company so I should know a thing or two about finances.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “If you want to, I can always take an afternoon off and we can discuss your problems.”

God, this sounded too good to be true. Sharon wasn’t exactly to be trusted when it came to money and other than her, Charles hadn’t really anybody else to talk to… And Erik, he looked trustworthy enough. Who cared that they had known each other for less than two months? They were friendly enough already. And if that wasn’t enough, Charles had accidentally been at Erik’s apartment already, anyway. It wasn't a completely unknown quantity. 

"Okay," Charles said, letting a smile spread across his face. "Sure. Let me know when you have time, and I'll be there." 

Erik smiled back, and this time it reached his eyes, those silver-blue eyes that Charles had been so taken with from the first time he ever saw this man. In repose, they tended to make Erik look a little cold, but now they were crinkled at the corners and Charles felt something twist in his chest, a warm little sliver of hope. 

*

Charles had half-expected to have to wait a while to get an invitation -- if, indeed, he ever did. Erik was a busy man, after all; Charles hadn't known how senior he was in his job, but now he was even more convinced of the value of the man's time. Giving up an afternoon to help a schoolboy with his money troubles was probably not very high on the list of Erik's priorities. 

He was pleasantly surprised, then, when Erik leaned over the next morning and asked coolly, "How are you fixed for Friday afternoon?" 

Charles blinked, looking up at Erik in disbelief. "This Friday?" 

"Unless you're busy, of course." Erik folded himself elegantly into his seat, moving, as always, with the sort of grace that looked completely out of place on shitty public transport. Erik always looked as if he should be delivering a speech to the United Nations or something, all calm authority and poise. 

Charles could hardly believe what he was hearing. 

"Um -- no, I'm not, I just -- I didn't think you'd be able to find the time so fast." 

Erik shrugged. "I've been shifting my hours around lately, trying to accommodate Anya's visit. And now she's gone, so it turns out I don't need that saved-up Friday afternoon after all. Besides…" He smiled. "This is important, Charles. If I can help you in any way, I want to." 

Charles's mind had got stuck on one salient point. "Anya's gone?" 

"For now, anyway," Erik said, nodding. "She's gone home to her mother. I think there were a few universities here that caught her interest, so if she gets places, she might be back soon enough. But the apartment feels a bit empty all of a sudden. Teenagers fill a place up." 

Charles smiled wryly. "I don't know if I can match her for space-filling. She's...a big personality." 

"I'm sorry if she came on a bit strong and scared you," Erik said. The corner of his mouth was quirked in a way that suggested he knew exactly what his daughter was like with boys, and Charles flushed abruptly, wondering what she might have told him. Charles had blustered and fluffed his way through rejecting Anya's advances, but she'd got the gist of what he meant, he was pretty sure. And if she'd told her father...well. He might be more inclined to suspect things if Charles couldn't keep his little crush under control. It was just that Erik had the kind of face that made you want to stare at it as much as possible, and now… 

"Friday afternoon, then?" Erik cut in, as if to save Charles from his own train of thought. "What train do you get back? I'll make sure to get the same one, and we can get off at my place."

"Oh, um. Yes, please, that would be amazing, so kind of you, Erik." Charles smiled his best grateful smile and tried to ignore the quiver of guilty tension that had sprung up under his diaphragm. On Friday -- this Friday -- he was going to be alone with this man in his apartment. Talking about finances, sure, but that didn't mean Charles couldn't enjoy the experience of being the centre of Erik's attention, if only for a little while. 

The end of the week came sooner than anticipated; Charles was flooded with homework and thus kept busy. Naturally, he hardly had a chance to gather his documents regarding his finances so it all had to be done in a rush on a Thursday night. And once he was finished, he lay awake in bed mulling over in his head how his meeting with Erik could go. His thoughts skipped from worst case to best case scenarios, and all of them had him flushed with embarrassment. It was past 2 in the morning when he last glanced at his clock.

When the day finally came, he wondered how he had made it through all those hours at school alive. His concentration was all over the place, his movements were slow and sluggish. Only the prospect of seeing Erik this afternoon was somehow keeping him alive, even if barely.

They hadn’t exchanged phone numbers or anything in case they needed to contact each other if anything went wrong with timings. As Charles stood at the platform of the station close to his school, he wondered if Erik was going to make it on time, or if they'd missed each other. The train arrived. He got on it. No sign of Erik.

With a sigh, Charles picked a seat, listlessly throwing his bag onto the empty seat next to him, then sat down. His journey back home would take about half an hour, and while he wasn’t feeling exactly like reading, he fumbled for his book anyway. Just as he had read a couple of pages, slowly getting into the groove of reading, he heard a voice behind him, smooth and low: “I suppose you didn’t see me sitting at the end of the carriage, did you?”

Charles's head jerked up immediately. "Erik!" 

That voice was unmistakable, its clipped, elegant accent wrapped around the edge of a tease, and Charles couldn't help but grin, although he undoubtedly looked like an idiot. Book or not, certain thoughts had started to intrude into his mind: what if Erik had changed his mind? What if Erik hadn't actually meant any of this, about helping Charles out? What if something more important had come up, what if…

Except, now, here was Erik, getting up and moving down the carriage in long strides until he could swing himself down into the seat opposite Charles. His legs were so long in their grey pressed trousers that his knees almost brushed Charles's. Charles swallowed. 

"I thought we'd missed each other," he admitted. 

"Me too, for a moment," Erik said, nodding curtly. "Hang on -- let me give you my number." 

What followed felt a little surreal: the fumbling for phones, the shy laughter when they noticed they both had the exact same model. Erik passed his phone across to Charles and held out a hand for Charles's -- "Easier if we just put our own numbers in, don't you think?" -- and Charles dared to imagine for a moment that they were swapping numbers for other reasons entirely. Not that Charles had ever actually swapped numbers with anyone for those purposes, but you...heard things. A boy could dream. 

Muscle memory made it odd to start heading the wrong way from the station, as it seemed to Charles, in the direction of Erik's house. But Charles knew the area well, and Erik's building was familiar from more than one regular pizza delivery customer. It wasn't until Erik had his key in the latch that it started to seem weird again, Erik saying, "There you are -- take a seat," as he tossed his keys onto the hall table and started to shrug off his coat before he'd even got the door closed behind them. 

"Just give me a minute," Erik said, as Charles started hesitantly in the direction of the sitting area. "I like to get rid of the battle-gear when I get home." 

Then he grinned, that megawatt smile that wreathed his whole face, and started undoing the knot of his tie. Charles looked away sharply and started to root through his bag for the stuff he'd brought for Erik to look at. 

"That's better." When Erik sat down, his weight made the sofa cushions shift; he was in shirtsleeves now, blazer and tie and shoes hastily discarded, and his elbow was warm when it brushed Charles's. "So. Where shall we start?" 

It didn't take long for Charles to establish that Erik really did know what he was talking about. He took his time to look through the folder Charles had brought along, carefully spread out the relevant sheets of paper and sorted them into neat piles just so he could find more easily the information he might need again at some point. It was effective, Charles could see that, and he wasn’t used to it. It was one thing being a disorganised pupil, albeit more organised than the rest of his entire year, and quite another being an adult with a career and years of experience when it came to structured, effective working. It was half past five when it finally looked as though Erik had looked through everything Charles could possibly own -- and it was more than embarrassing for him to admit that, yes, while his family had once been wealthy, they were barely managing these days. Others might have given Charles strange, perhaps even condescending looks at that confession ( _serves the rich brat just right._ ) but Erik merely shook his head at Sharon Xavier and how she could treat her children in a way where not even their own money for their education was safe from their mother. There wasn’t exactly pity in the way he looked at Charles but it was strangely comforting nonetheless, knowing that Erik was on his side.

“I think I know how I could help you, Charles,” he said when they were finished, and he gathered the sheets on the table to put them back into Charles’s folder. “I know a few places where you could apply for scholarships since Anya’s been doing the same. I can’t do much about your current financial situation, I’m afraid, other than giving you a more generous tip next time I order pizza but apart from that…” He shrugged his shoulders, looking a bit helpless, and even though Charles’s worries hadn’t really vanished, he couldn’t feel more grateful. It had been a while since someone had sat down with him and explained him How To Handle Grown Up Business. He was still learning, after all.

“If you could do that, that’d be great. But only if it’s not too much of a hassle.”

“Of course not, I’ve still got some brochures here. Wait a minute.” With a friendly pat on Charles’s knee he got up and walked into a room which Charles supposed must have been his home office. Certainly, Charles hadn’t meant to let his eyes roam over Erik’s body as he walked away but… God, that shoulder-waist ratio should be _illegal_ for a man his age.

A moment later, Erik came back with a handful of leaflets and a sheet of paper which, when Erik laid it down on the table, turned out to be a list of weblinks. "Here." Erik gestured at the print-out with one long finger; the bones in his wrist showed below the unbuttoned cuff of his shirt, something about them curiously vulnerable. "These are some scholarships I found for local universities, when I was researching. I don't know whether you want to stay in-state, but we're lucky enough to have some very good colleges in the region." 

Charles smiled. "Once upon a time, I wanted to go to Oxford." He looked up at Erik and knew from the wince on Erik's face that he recognised the problem inherent in that. 

"Nobody from outside of the EU is going to get a decent undergraduate scholarship to Oxford," Erik commented sympathetically. "You're stuck in the US, I'm afraid. At least until graduate school." 

"What made you think I wanted to go to graduate school?" Charles ventured a glance up at Erik's face, and Erik shrugged. 

"You seemed the type, I suppose." He gestured to one of the weblinks he'd starred in red pen. "This one is particularly generous. Anya's going to apply for it, I think, although really we could finance her without a scholarship." 

Charles looked up at that. "Really?" 

As soon as he'd said it, he flushed -- the Xaviers might not be rich any more, but they were well-bred, and the last thing well-bred people talked about was other people's money. But Erik didn't seem to take offence. 

"I know my apartment isn't terribly impressive," he said, self-deprecatingly, "but I do pretty well. It's just that most of it ends up sent back to Germany. After all, there are four of them and only one of me. I don't need a place bigger than this, do I?" 

"I suppose not." Charles looked down at the papers in his hands. "I suppose I need to go away and look into these, then." 

"You do that." Erik lifted one hand, then hesitated a moment, unsure, before clapping it down on Charles's shoulder and squeezing. "That stuff is bloody complicated, though. If you'd like to meet up again to talk about how you're getting on, you only have to ask." A corner of Erik's mouth twitched. "It's nice to have another voice in my apartment that isn't coming out of the television, once in a while."

Charles's breath had become shallow. "There's only you here?"

"Yes, why?" Erik frowned, though there was curious amusement in his eyes. "Did you think I was in a relationship?"

"I-I... I did, yes. I just thought it was normal for a man your age." Not only Charles cringed visibly at his own words -- Erik made a face as well.

"Well, I am a father, yes. I used to be married. But since then there hasn't been anyone who could put up with me long enough. Not really."

They fell silent for a while until Charles offered a meek, "I apologise. I didn't want to offend you or anything. I was just...curious."

"It's fine, Charles. This is how people get to know each other. You're still young, and if you want to hear boring tales about my long life, then ask away."

Charles cleared his throat awkwardly. "Not _that_ long." It seemed only polite to counter Erik's suggestion that he'd been walking the earth for centuries. And if, privately, Charles was curious, well… 

"Long enough, believe me!" Erik laughed. "I'm thirty years older than you are. I could practically fit your entire life twice into the age gap between us. No wonder I've had some time to learn about finances." The laugh turned into a sardonic snort. "Even if not, apparently, time to learn about maintaining relationships." 

Charles's pulse was fast in his throat, at the nape of his neck. All of a sudden, this felt like dangerous territory, stuff that mattered -- mattered more than dry things about university finance and scholarships, much as Charles wanted that. Erik wasn't often open like this, offering, and Charles _did_ want to know, even if he wasn't sure why he should. He bit his lip. 

"Was it awful? The divorce, I mean." 

"Not as bad as some I've known." Erik, to Charles's great relief, sounded thoughtful, rather than guarded. "Magda and I were great friends before we were married. That's _why_ we got married, really. She was my best friend in high school and then we just sort of drifted together, and Anya came, and the twins…" Erik broke off. "And then we realised the whole thing had just been us drifting all along, I suppose." He twisted his hands together. "She's got another bloke, off and on, now." 

"And you?" Charles's mouth was dry. "Have you had girlfriends since her?" 

"Not girlfriends, no." Erik looked up at him sidelong, and Charles flushed a little, thinking he caught the meaning in Erik's expression. 

"Oh," he said, faintly. "Um." 

"Mmm," Erik said, with matching vagueness. "I mean, there've been people, off and on, but nothing serious. I suppose I'm a confirmed bachelor." He sat back against the settee and smiled. "And here you are, rejecting my daughter…" 

"It wasn't like that!" Charles broke in, suddenly anxious. "I mean...I…" 

"I'm only teasing, Charles," Erik said, his voice gentle all of a sudden. "I know. Anya told me." For a moment, he only looked at Charles, blue eyes soft. "Dealing with having a single parent and trying to scrape up finances for university is hard enough as it is without being confused about your sexuality, I know." Erik cleared his throat. "But if I can help, I will. You know where to find me." 

Erik crossed his arms, and Charles watched the flex of muscle in his biceps under the shirt with a sense of encroaching doom. 

"Thank you," he said, faint. He wasn’t entirely sure what Erik meant by that but he didn’t dare ask further. Not now when there was such a companionable silence between them, frail and new and yet comfortable.

They had probably overstepped at least twenty bounds today as to how a seventeen-year-old and a man in his late forties should behave around each other; Charles was certain that the last eighteen _don’ts_ had been crossed during the last ten minutes. Two people who could barely count as _friends_ with an age gap of thirty years surely weren’t meant to look at one another in such a way. But Charles couldn’t bring himself to look away -- he _cherished_ Erik’s undivided attention. A strange thought across his mind; Erik was probably the first person who could understand him. Effortlessly. Raven might have been his sister and they’d always understand each other on a level nobody else would reach but with Erik, it was different.

The thing was...Charles had never had a father, not really. Not once he was old enough to be a thinking, worrying human being with growing-up anxieties of his own. In many ways, he envied Anya for having Erik there to ask when she had problems: Erik who knew everything about the world of finance, about loans, about scholarships; Erik, who had thirty years' of experience on Charles and who seemed to genuinely care. When Erik said he'd help if he could, Charles was pretty sure he meant it in a fatherly fashion -- if Charles wanted to talk, Erik would listen. 

The only problem with that was that Charles didn't think he'd feel about his own father the way he currently felt about Erik. The idea of calmly discussing his burgeoning homosexuality with a man who looked like he'd just walked out of an Armani catalogue was...well. Charles didn't think he could do it objectively, at least. But talking about university finance, he thought he could probably manage that. 

Erik crossed his hands in his lap, cleared his throat again. "Is anyone expecting you? I'd offer you a drink, but I don't think I've got much besides water, and --" 

"No, no!" Charles broke in hastily. "No, it's fine, you've been more than hospitable, but I really should be getting home now. Homework, you know." He patted his satchel indicatively, and Erik smiled. 

"Of course. Well, you've got my number now -- text me when you need me, won't you?" 

"I will," Charles said automatically as they got up and headed for the door, Charles with a load of new pamphlets in his hand. As if it was perfectly normal and to be expected, him sending Erik little panicky texts asking for financial help. God. It _was_ normal, from Erik's side, surely; it wasn't his fault that Charles seemed to have developed a...thing...for him. 

It was only a ten minute walk from Erik's apartment to the Xavier house. If Charles happened to spend those minutes writing and deleting increasingly creative text messages to Erik, well...nobody had to know. 

*

“Why are you smiling at your phone like that?” Raven asked as she poked Charles’s thigh with her toe. “It’s creepy.”

Raven had the habit of occupying Charles’s bed when she was doing her homework, while Charles was forced to lie on the ground. Never mind that he had an actual desk to work on. Now, however, he was doing anything but homework.

“Nothing,” he replied curtly with a flinch, half tempted to put away the phone but he felt that would only confirm some weird idea in his sister’s head.

“You don’t smile like that because of _nothing_ , Charles. Why? Why? Why?” Each question was punctuated with a poke of her toe.

“Can’t I smile at my phone without you being nosy about it?”

“Obviously not. Who is it? Hm?”

“What?” _Play it dumb, Charles, play it dumb and she will stop asking…_

Only at this moment, the person he was texting with decided to reply and Charles’s eyes were back on the screen. Without warning, Raven jumped up and snatched the phone from his hands.

“Raven! Give it back to me!” Charles cried as he chased after her. Raven kept him at an arm’s length.

“Who is Erik Lehnsherr?” she asked with a frown and a wicked grin.

“Nobody,” Charles hissed while attempting to get his phone back from her. His little sister showed no mercy. At some point in the last year, damn her, Raven had somehow managed to shoot up about six inches all in one go and now she towered over Charles. This was embarrassing enough, but Raven had also learned the value of using her new long limbs to torture Charles more effectively than ever. If Raven wanted to hold Charles's phone above her head and scroll through his texts, there was no way in hell Charles was going to be able to reach and snatch it back. 

"Nobody, hmm?" Raven was still grinning, delighted by the thrill of this new mystery. "Charles, have you got a _boyfriend_? Did someone finally ask you out?" 

Charles took a moment to close his eyes in mortification. " _No_ , Raven -- give that back --" 

He lunged, but she anticipated him easily, holding him back by the shoulder as she scrolled. "Hmmm. Thrilling sexts about university finance. I bet that gets you off, right, nerdboy?" 

"Raven…" Charles sighed, and decided to admit defeat. He sat down on the bed and looked up at her, one eyebrow quirked. "If he was my boyfriend, do you think we'd be talking about that?" 

Raven shrugged. Apparently satisfied that Charles wasn't going to make another dive for the phone, she sat down next to him and, almost as an afterthought, handed it back. "Knowing you, I wouldn't be surprised. But, come on, then, if he's not your boyfriend then who is he?" 

"He's…" Charles sought for the right word. "He's...advising me. About money stuff." 

"Is he someone from school?" 

Charles snorted a laugh, picturing Erik in their school uniform, tie neatly knotted. "Uh, no. He's actually -- " how best to put this in a way that wouldn't make her immediately assume Erik had axe-murdering tendencies -- "You know how I went to that college a few days ago…?”

“He’s one of the _students_?” Raven exclaimed and the high pitch in her voice caused Charles to flinch. Excitement radiated from her, and Charles knew that his sister had read far too many cheesy romance novels by this point not to imagine a forbidden yet stormy love affair between a college student and a high school pupil, challenged by society, by _their parents_ disapproving of their eternal love for one another.

Only that reality was far worse, far more inappropriate than anything Raven could ever imagine. And there wasn’t _anything_ going on even. It was just Charles’s stupid crush on an older attractive man. Nevertheless, it was probably better if his sister didn’t know how messed up her brother was for befriending someone three times his age. Ultimately, he chose not to correct her, only shrugged half-heartedly with what he hoped was an innocent, non-meaningful smile.

"He knows more about this stuff than me," he said, not untruthfully. 

Raven raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Even if he's not your boyfriend _yet_ , he will be," she said decisively. 

Charles blinked. "What? How do you figure that out?" 

God, imagine _Erik_ as his boyfriend. The thought was ridiculous. Imagine Erik with his arm around Charles's shoulders, Erik with his fingers threaded through Charles's, Erik pinning Charles up against the door of his office and growling hotly in his ear… 

"Charles!" Raven snapped her fingers under his nose, jerking him out of his reverie. "Are you even listening?" 

" _Yes_ , Raven, I'm listening!" Charles lied. Raven rolled her eyes. 

"I _said_ , no college student wants to give up his valuable time helping out a high-schooler with _finance_ unless he thinks he's gonna get something out of it. I'm telling you, Charlie-boy, he thinks you're cute. And I bet he's cute too...huh?" 

Charles was sure he'd gone pink to the tips of his ears. The lingering tendrils of his earlier thought about Erik and the office door weren't exactly helping. 

"Leave it alone," he muttered. Raven, naturally, took this as confirmation. 

"Knew it," she said, settling back down against the bed like a victor resting on her laurels. "I expect to hear all the details, okay?" 

The following week, when Charles was once again standing outside Erik's apartment door, he couldn't help but be annoyed with Raven for putting ideas in his head. Erik had texted him this time -- he was taking the day off work, so he wouldn't be on the train; would Charles like to come over this afternoon so Erik could explain what was going on with the scholarships in person? It was a little hard to explain via text. 

And now there was a message lighting up in Charles's hand, blaring _GET FUCKING LAID, I BELIEVE IN UUUUUUUU_ , while Erik was opening the door, polite and casually dressed and blissfully ignorant as to why Charles was once again pinker than an entire bouquet of roses. 

"Charles! Come in," Erik said, stepping back into the apartment, and Charles shuffled past him, trying his best to look normal -- or as normal as he could look, dressed in his working clothes from the pizzeria. His shift had just ended, and he realised he must look slightly silly in his too big sweatshirt with the logo printed on it, his even sillier hat and his huge box of pizza, which had gone cold on his way to Erik’s flat. But then, maybe Erik could forget about all this and accept Charles’s meagre offering of dinner.

Not that this was supposed to be a date or anything. _Dinner_ always had that strange connotation to it which had Charles’s mind wandering…

“I brought something to eat from work that we can share. I hope you don’t mind,” he said as he stepped in, smiling meekly. He made sure to get rid of his stupid hat and hide it in his bag as soon as Erik had taken the pizza carton with a look of surprise on his face.

“Of course not. I haven’t eaten anything yet… How much do I owe you?”

“Owe me?” Charles blinked.

“Well,” Erik began but was already in the process of reaching for his wallet. “You’re a student, and I suppose you had to pay for this. I’d like to invite you…”

“Oh, no!” Charles cut in. “I don’t have to pay for that. Honestly. I get it for free.”

“Really?” Erik didn’t look convinced at all, not with that one eyebrow raised.

Charles couldn’t help but grin. “When I beg long enough.”

"Hmm." Erik looked amused, steady blue eyes twinkling. "Yes, I can believe you're good at getting your own way, with those big innocent eyes of yours."

Charles laughed, scratching at the back of his neck. It was a nervous tic of his; Raven liked to tease him about it. "No, honestly. People order things and then decide they want to change their toppings when it's too late, stuff like that. We can't sell those pizzas, so employees can take them home."

"Fascinating," Erik said dryly, but the corner of his mouth was still quirked. "See, this is a knowledge exchange. I tell you about university finance, and you tell me about the inner workings of pizza parlours."

"I don't know if that's a fair exchange," Charles pointed out.

Erik shrugged, flipping open the lid of the pizza box and laying out slices onto a plate, ready to be rewarmed in the microwave. "I don't mind. Like I say -- company." 

The microwave door slammed, and Erik turned, leaning back languidly against the counter. Charles couldn't help but track the lean lines of his body in t shirt and jeans, everything about Erik, from his bare forearms to his bare feet, looking more casual than Charles had ever seen it. How a man could look as good in a t shirt as be did in a suit was more than Charles could understand. 

The pizza came as a welcome distraction. Erik set out plates and water, and by the time they'd had a slice each, Charles was somewhere close to calm again. Erik had pulled his notepad across the table and was asking how far Charles had got, and this was safe ground again, mostly. Erik's long fingers tapped the pencil idly against the table as he talked, and Charles focused on the repetitive motion, on his answers. On why he was here. Once he was relaxed, it was nice to be with Erik like this, easier than tripping through a fraught conversation with Sharon at home.

After a while, when Charles felt as though he had an idea on how to take the next step in applying for a scholarship, they moved to Erik’s living room. Under different circumstances, polite decency would have reminded him that it was probably time to go home, now that he and Erik had done enough talking for the day, all his questions had been answered so far, they both had finished the pizza and it was well past seven in the evening. It wasn’t as though he had forgotten about his manners or what was considered ‘appropriate’ but…neither did Erik protest about Charles still lingering around nor had he made any move towards throwing him actively out. He seemed fine with Charles still being here, and Charles decided he'd be damned if he was the first to bring up that he should probably leave.

They were watching the latest episode of a TV show they both happened to love. Everything would have been perfect, Charles and Erik sharing the couch as though it was the most normal thing in this world for two friends with an age difference of thirty years to sit like this in such narrow space, if it hadn’t been for his sister. Raven kept on bombarding him with text messages at two-minute-intervals. And, perhaps, Charles had grown a tiny bit paranoid over the course of the past twenty minutes because he could have _sworn_ that Erik kept on sneaking weird glances in his direction.

He should have known that staying this late was a bad idea. Raven had already had her suspicions; she'd held off for as long as could reasonably be expected of anyone with her level of nosiness, but now it was past seven and all bets were off. Charles being out past seven, unless he was with Raven herself, was pretty much unheard of. And now the texts were rolling in, Charles's phone buzzing conspicuously even with the sound off: 

_having a nice evening? ;)_

_hey charles. charles. what are you and your bf up to?_

_COME ON, MAN, THROW ME A BONE HERE_

_HAVE YOU BANGED CUTE COLLEGE BOY YET?_

_OMG ARE YOU BANGING HIM RIGHT NOW?_

Not for the first time, Charles cursed Raven's propensity for LOUD AND OBVIOUS ALL-CAPS TEXT MESSAGES. He tucked the phone back into his pocket and fixed his eyes on the screen. The next time the phone buzzed, he studiously ignored it. Maybe if he just let her stew without responding, she'd give up, and Erik would never notice Charles's distraction. 

This, of course, was when Erik asked casually, "So, have you got a boyfriend now, or what?" 

Charles caught his breath so violently he actually managed to inhale saliva, and his voice was croaky when he managed to respond, "What?" 

Erik indicated Charles's pocket, smiling wryly. "I, uh. Your phone's going a lot. I know how you young people love your technology, but it seemed like something important was going on. And I may have happened to see the word 'boyfriend'." 

Dammit, Raven. Making a mental note to curse her for all eternity when he got home, Charles said hastily, "No, no. It's just my sister. She -- well." Charles tried to phrase this carefully. "She thinks there's this guy -- who I have a crush on, except there isn't and I don't. It's nothing." He cleared his throat. "Sorry about all the buzzing."

Erik made a humming noise, face contemplative for a moment, before he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

_Oh God._

“Sorry?”

“About your crush,” Erik clarified with a shrug. “You said you’ve never had a relationship. I just… I know how difficult it can be to maintain that sort of thing for the first time, especially with your own gender. Not that wooing women wasn’t difficult enough.”

This entire moment was awkward enough already. Quietly, Charles thought to himself that it surely couldn’t get worse, not since Erik had read Raven’s text messages about him getting laid. He might as well give it a try, even if it would be just to let out some of his frustration.

“Well,” he began carefully, drawing up his legs to sit tailor-fashion. “It’s just someone I really like. Raven -- my sister -- somehow found out about him by being the annoying little brat that she is.” He smiled slightly. “And she’s been annoying me about it ever since.”

Erik nodded. “Does he like you as well?”

“That’s… That’s not the important part.” Careful now. “It’s more like that I’m too young to even think of dating a… _someone_ like him.”

That seemed to get Erik’s full attention; he shifted his weight, turned his entire posture towards Charles. The latter felt as though a spotlight had been directed at him. This was bad. This was really bad. This was a minefield of embarrassing revelations and somehow he couldn’t escape this anymore.

“He’s older then?” Erik’s smirk shouldn’t have made him feel as though the older man was flirting with him but Charles couldn’t help himself. He swallowed dryly.

“Yes,” he said, slow, and avoided Erik’s intent gaze. “I met him a while ago.”

“Where?”

“College. He’s one of the students who showed me around.” It was the best thing he could come up with so instantly. If Erik felt any sort of disappointment at Charles’s answer, he didn’t let it show. Charles wasn’t entirely sure either whether or not he wanted him to be disappointed. What if he tested the waters, though...

"Okay," Erik said thoughtfully. "Let's backtrack, here. I know you said this isn't the important part, but you didn't answer my question. I'm going to ask it again so we have the full picture. Putting everything else aside for now: do think he likes you back?" Erik asked, his voice a study in casualness. Charles shrugged. 

"Sometimes, I think he might, but then I think I'm probably being stupid and he's probably just being nice." 

"Well..." Erik shifted on the settee; he resettled his weight in such a way that his arm was stretched across the back of the seats, fingers curled towards Charles's shoulder. If Charles were to move two inches, they'd be touching. "Is he gay?" 

Charles thought for a moment. The ground in front of him felt suddenly shaky. "Um, not gay, no. I know he had a girlfriend. But...I'm pretty sure he likes boys too." 

"There you go, then." Erik was looking at him intently now. "Maybe your instinct is right." 

"Yes, but..." Charles forced himself to raise his head, look Erik full in the face. "I don't know if he sees me that way, you know? I mean we get on great, but I'm so much younger. Would -- would you ever date someone younger?" 

His heart was pounding. He only hoped it didn't show on his face. 

After a second's pause, Erik said, "Under the right circumstances, sure. Personal connection is more important than age, Charles. It's rare and it's important. I think -- I think you should be positive." 

For one insane, trembling moment, looking into those cool blue eyes, Charles thought Erik had seen through him; that he knew the Crush was him. Charles could hear his own breath reverberating around his skull and his lips were dry. He wetted them reflexively, took a half-motion forward -- 

And then Erik stood, casually unaffected, of course, because Charles was just a stupid fucking kid and Erik was adult and gorgeous and perfect. 

"I'm going for a beer," he said, pushing one hand through his hair. "Want one?" 

“No, thank you…” Charles replied, weak. He hadn't acquired the taste for beer yet. Hell, it would be four years until he was technically old enough to drink: very likely still too young for Erik -- beautiful Erik who looked like a model out of a beer advert with his head tipped back, exposing his neck as he sipped from the bottle. Charles sighed in defeat.

As Erik walked back to their shared couch, Charles reluctantly stood up.

“It’s late… I promised Raven that I’d help her with homework when I got back, so…” He clarified as he noticed the look on Erik’s face. Erik nodded with a small frown flickering across his features.

“Of course. Yeah. Let me help you.”

He took Charles’s bag and carried it for him as they walked to the door. Charles did feel a bit ridiculous about it, how Erik stood there, patiently holding his belongings while Charles put on his jacket. With a grin, Erik handed him his pizza boy delivery hat and Charles took it with an emphasized groan and let it quickly disappear into the depths of his bag once Erik had handed it back to him.

They looked at each other for one long uncomfortable moment which had Charles feeling as though he _ought_ to say something. He opened his mouth at a weak attempt at forming a more or less coherent sentence, but Erik beat him to it.

“I hope I could help you with some of your questions today.”

“Yes. Yes. Definitely. Thank you.” And just because he couldn’t really help himself, and his brain wasn’t obeying him -- “I had fun this evening. Maybe we could do that again some time.”

Erik tilted his head just slightly with his eyes narrowed but smiling nonetheless. He looked like a bird analysing its prey right before a deadly attack.

“That’d be great. And next time, let me pay for that pizza.”

“No way,” Charles laughed and Erik opened the door for him.

“Drive safely, Charles. I’ve seen your little scooter and it’s nowhere near legal with all that rust everywhere…”

“Don’t insult Belinda. She’s an old lady.”

“You gave your scooter a name?” Erik shook his head despite his amusement. “Text me when you’re home.”


	4. Chapter 4

_Text me when you get home._ Erik took a long pull of his beer and shook his head, mentally chastising himself. That was what he told Anya when she went out -- further back, it was what he'd told Magda when they were dating, although in those days a phone call had to suffice. It wasn't his place to treat Charles like he had any obligation to Erik, even if it was just to reassure him of his safety. 

Except, Erik cared. That wasn't a bad thing, was it? Charles was a kid, after all. It was just...when Erik searched himself, he knew that wasn't the reason. No: he and Charles were friends. That was why Erik cared. 

Friends with a thirty year age difference, of course. Erik laughed dryly to himself and rubbed a hand over his eyes. When Charles had suggested spending another evening together like this, Erik had been all for it. Charles was good company, funny, clever. But now that he was alone, Erik started to wonder if it was really such a good idea. Definitely, some part of his mind had pointed out that if Charles was with Erik, he couldn't be off banging some disgusting college jock -- and what kind of a person did that make Erik, wanting to sabotage Charles's first real shot at a relationship? Wanting...

Christ. Erik cut off his reverie with another swig of beer and sighed. All right, he could admit it. For a moment of insanity there,when Charles had admitted to an older crush, Erik had simultaneously hoped and dreaded that the crush might be...well...himself. And hope had won out. 

His phone beeped, and he scrambled for it. 

_Home! :) Charles XXX_

'Good!' Erik replied, automatically, and then sighed heavily as he put the phone back down. No, he and Charles shouldn't do this again. This was a path that led nowhere good. At least, if nothing else, he would put some space between them. They could be commuting acquaintances, but anything else was dangerous. 

Erik was still congratulating himself on sticking to his guns the following Friday when he received a text from Charles that rather fucked the whole plan up.

_Erik can yku pjck me up_

He stared at his phone for several seconds, trying to understand the meaning behind this message. It was past ten PM in the evening. Charles had never texted him _that_ late, and especially not with messed up spelling.

 _Can I what?_ he texted back, then waited. Several minutes passed before Charles replied, and his second message didn’t sound much more intelligible than the previous one.

_Im at scool and dont knkw how to get hlme_

Erik sighed heavily. He was beginning to suspect he knew what was going on here. 

_Charles, are you drunk?_

and then, in quick succession 

_Why are you drunk at school?_

The phone buzzed again after thirty seconds: 

_dnace. Pnuch ws alcoholic_

Erik took a moment to marvel at the fact that, amidst all this nonsense, the word 'alcoholic' was correctly spelled. Probably autocorrect. 

For a moment, he contemplated asking why Charles was texting him, but then he remembered Charles's reticence on the subject of his mother, the way he seemed to essentially have raised his sister himself, and sighed. 

_What school? I'll come and get you. Stay there._

Even though the subsequent answer didn’t make much sense at first, Erik managed to find Charles’s school thanks to Google. While he was someone who preferred going to work by train, he didn’t mind taking his car at this late time of the day in order to help Charles. He managed to get there within twenty minutes, and when he arrived, he realised that picking up Charles was the only decent and right thing he could have done at this point. It was loud, it was overcrowded. As Erik pushed his way through groups of giddy teenagers, he wondered where on earth the supervision, such as it was, had disappeared to.

He didn’t spot Charles instantly, but he found him soon enough -- sitting hunched over on a bench with his head in his palms and surrounded by a crowd of boys, laughing and passing around several pocket flasks.

“Come on, Charlie, you look like you need another drink!” one of the boys said with a stupid smile plastered on his face while another one elbowed him, whispering, “Told you so, he’s a fucking lightweight.”

The boys surrounding Charles laughed, and Erik had to refrain himself from physically knocking some sense into their thick heads.

“Excuse me,” he growled as he pushed through the small crowd in order to get to Charles. He was aware of the strange looks these idiots were giving him but he was too old for that sort of crap to bother him. “Charles? I’m here,” he said as he squeezed the boy’s shoulder, willing him to look up. And when he did, he smiled. He looked terribly flushed and out of it, with droopy tired eyes, but he still gave Erik the most pleased smile he could muster in his current state.

"Erik!" Charles sounded sleepy and delighted. "What're you doing here? This is my school." 

"I know, Charles," Erik said patiently. He had been seventeen and drunk too, once upon a time, after all. "You texted me, remember?" 

"I did?" Charles blinked for a moment, looking confused. "Oh." 

"You did," Erik said firmly, "and now I'm glad you did. Come on, now, up." He hooked a hand under Charles's armpit and hauled him up, ignoring the small crowd of boys now parting like waves around Erik as he moved. "Excuse us, please," he said flatly to the nearest boy, and took quiet pleasure in the way the smiles dropped off the boys' faces as they let Erik through. 

If Erik had thought getting Charles in the car would the hardest part, it soon turned out he was dead wrong. Charles was drunk. He was so drunk, Erik suspected he'd never had more than a few sips of champagne before, and now he was giggly and confused and dammit, yes, adorable in Erik's passenger seat.

“How much have you had?” he asked once he had managed to get the seatbelt around the boy. He didn’t necessarily want to risk his safety now that he had just managed to get him out of this teenage nightmare.

“Just one…”

“One drink?”

“One flask.” And now Charles was giggling like a naughty five-year-old who had been caught by his parent. Erik sighed.

“I thought you didn't like drinking?" He couldn't entirely manage to keep the paternal tone out of his voice. He _was_ a father after all, and he knew the dreadful feeling of worrying about all the stupid things one’s child was capable of doing. Not that Charles was _his_ son but he nonetheless felt a certain odd sense of responsibility towards him.

Charles shrugged loosely. "I don't like it when Mother drinks. S'pose I wondered why she does it." 

"And?" Erik asked pointedly, manoeuvring the car around a particularly tight curve in the road. Charles, unaware of what his body was doing, sloshed forward in the seat like water in a can, and Erik automatically shot out an arm to brace him. 

"Mmm," Charles laughed, apparently not noticing the jolt. "Well, 's kind of...warm? I s'pose?" 

"Well, yes." Erik sighed. "I'll tell you a secret, Charles: I don't really understand why these Americans think people are old enough to get shot at when they're still teenagers, but shouldn't drink alcohol until they're twenty-one. You can fuck, but not drink? That's stupid. But so is drinking too much, however old you are. Especially if you're not used to it. It's dangerous, do you hear me?" 

"Mmmmmm," Charles said, flopping languidly in the seat, and giggled. Erik sighed. Clearly he wasn't going to get much through to Charles today. 

"Listen: I'm going to take you back to my flat. Will your mother miss you?" 

"Sharon'll be passed out by now," Charles said, more clearly than anything else he'd said so far, and Erik's chest clenched with quiet fury at the woman. Poor Charles. No kid should have to grow up like this. 

"All right, then," Erik said, carefully disentangling his hand from where Charles's fingers had curled over it on the stick-shift. "Let me have my hand, and we'll go." 

That was the moment when Charles suddenly started humming _I Want to Hold Your Hand_ , albeit not hitting every note, while he lightly traced the veins on Erik’s hand. It took every ounce of Erik's willpower to stay resolute.

“Come on, Charles, I can’t drive and take you to bed if you keep me from handling the gears.”

Charles complied with a silly grin plastered on his lips. He curled up on the passenger seat and rested his head against the seat at an angle that let him watch Erik easily. “Why do you have them, anyway? This is ‘murica... Land of free driving and not any bloody complicated car technology…”

“Because I prefer the European way. It’s more fun.”

That seemed to be satisfying enough as an answer; Charles fell quiet, Erik drove them back to his flat. There were moments when he thought that, finally, Charles had fallen asleep. Whenever he risked a glance, though, he found that the boy was still looking at him from heavy-lidded eyes. The headlights of passing cars glittered off the slits of blue, and every time, Erik looked away, swallowed. Maybe things would be easier if Charles would just fall asleep already. Then he could manhandle him into the house and onto the nearest couch without incident. As it was, he didn't know if he could trust Charles to be...well. He didn't know if he could trust Charles, and he didn't much want to think about it further than that. 

When the car came to a halt in the parking garage of Erik's building, Charles didn't move, even when Erik cut the engine and the dull vibrations of the car died down. With a sigh, Erik leaned across, caught hold of Charles's shoulder and shook it firmly. 

"Charles. Charles, we're here." 

"Mmmmph." Charles turned his face, rubbing his cheek against the back of the seat. He was still awake, though; Erik could see the faint shimmer of light off his irises where his lids were not quite shut. He tried again. 

"Charles. _Charles_." He unsnapped the seatbelt, and this had the desired effect: Charles had been leaning on the tense strap, and when it sprung back into its coiled position, Charles was suddenly deprived of a major means of support, with the result that he half-fell into the gap between the seats. Erik caught him easily, pushing him back up by the balls of his shoulders. "Hang on." 

He got out of the car, walked around the hood. When he opened Charles's door, the boy seemed to be coming round a little bit -- at least, he held out his arms towards Erik, and Erik dutifully helped him out. Charles felt loose, like a disjointed mannequin, and he pressed his face immediately into Erik's chest, giggling, but Erik couldn't bring himself to be upset with him. After all, he was better off here than back at school. God only knew what those boys had been planning to do with him, poor little lightweight. 

They staggered to the elevator like participants in a three-legged race, Charles's hands fisted in Erik's clothes and Erik's arms both firmly braced around the boy's body. When the elevator doors closed, Charles tipped his face up, smiled at Erik bleary and soft with his face pressed to Erik's chest. 

"Y'smell good," he mumbled. His breath was hot, too hot; a second later, he ducked his head and started nuzzling like an animal, and Erik had to clear his throat, lift Charles pointedly by the jaw. 

"All right, son." Erik couldn't deny that his word choice had been deliberate, a reminder to himself as well as Charles. "Nearly there."

It was one thing trying to get Charles into his car and getting him home without further interruptions, it was something entirely different to guide the boy towards his door while Charles clung to his side with his face shoved into the crook of Erik’s neck. Having Charles’s breath ghosting over the sensitive skin of his neck wasn’t even the worst thing about this whole debacle; it seemed as though he had turned into an octopus because no matter what Erik tried, he couldn’t keep the kid’s hands off him entirely. While Erik tried to fumble for his keys and open the door, Charles continued to rub his cheek against Erik’s shoulder. One of Charles’s sneaky hands stroked slowly across Erik’s stomach. It was maddening.

"Charles --" Pointedly, Erik reached for Charles's hand and moved it to more neutral ground, somewhere between his waist and his spine, somewhere that might reasonably offer support to an intoxicated person without making Erik's thighs go all funny. 

Charles's response was to giggle and clutch at Erik's hand as if he thought that had been the intention, threading their fingers together. Frantically, Erik sought for a topic of conversation to distract Charles from whatever he thought he was doing (if there were any thoughts in his head right now at all). 

"Was your crush there, then?" 

"Hmmm?" Charles tipped his head back, looked up, all sleepy eyes and slightly parted mouth. Erik had noticed the mouth before -- it was impossible not to -- but like this, it was the salient feature of Charles's face: raspberry pink and slightly damp and gently open, like an invitation. Erik immediately felt like a disgusting dirty old man. 

"I said," he repeated slowly, "was your crush there? At the party?" 

"Oh…" Charles's feet moved slowly with Erik's guidance, as if they were made of lead. Erik made to tip him over onto the settee, but Charles somehow managed, by some sleight of hand, to grab a fistful of Erik's shirt and drag him down too. "Nooooo. More's the pity." 

Only Charles, Erik thought grimly, would say something like _more's the pity_ when smashed out of his head.

“ _But_ ,” Charles said, his voice above a mere murmur and sounding so strangely intimate in a way which caught Erik by surprise. “He’s here now. That’s all that counts, right?”

And then it dawned on him.

“Charles…”

He began to move away, away from the boy seated so closely next to him, thighs pressed against one another, but for someone as inebriated as Charles, the boy reacted surprisingly quick.

“No,” he protested as he held on to Erik’s shirt. “No… Stay. Please.”

Gently, he braced his palms against Erik’s chest and smoothed over the crumpled fabric of his shirt. “Please…” he repeated, quiet, with his eyes fixed upon Erik’s bare throat before he looked up at him.

Erik sighed. Now that it came down to it, having his idle suspicions confirmed was not at all the thrill it might have been; Charles was a kid, and Erik was already in too deep. Having an interest in him was bad enough; for Charles to have an interest back, and to state it like that -- God. Erik really shouldn't have brought him back here. He should have taken him straight home. 

Except...he wasn't made of stone. Up close like this, Erik could see every freckle on Charles's face, the faint shine of wetness between his parted lips. Charles's body was overwarm from the alcohol, the smell of him clean and boyish, and as Erik lifted his hands to pry Charles's grip away from his chest, he couldn't help but swallow helplessly against a rush of awful want. 

"Charles, you'll be embarrassed in the morning," he said gently. "Believe me. You don't mean this." 

"'f course I mean it," Charles insisted. He disentangled his fingers from Erik's, and re-splayed his palm over Erik's heart, hot through the cotton of his shirt. "Moment I met you, you were -- you're so -- " 

" _Charles_ ," Erik warned, his voice straining, and Charles grinned up at him, just enough cheek in it that Erik suspected the graze of his thumb over the edge of Erik's nipple a moment later was a calculated move. 

"Raven'd be so jealous," Charles said, his voice conspiratorial. "Like an -- Armani model or something; when I'm tryna think about college I just wanna --" Abruptly, Charles leaned up, dove for Erik's mouth, and Erik's reflexes were too slow to jerk back before Charles's lips grazed the corner of his own, soft and inexpert. 

" _Enough_!" Erik stood up, taking advantage of Charles's moment of distraction to escape his clutches. His heart was racing in his chest; below him on the sofa, Charles lay where he'd fallen, looking crumpled and urgent and more than a little dazed. Erik swallowed hard. "I'm going to get you some water. Don't move."

“‘kay,” Charles hummed and stretched his body along the couch. Erik had to tear his eyes away from that sight; he was still too shaken by the boy’s attempt at kissing him.

Fetching a glass of water took less than two minutes. Summoning the courage to go back to his living room, where Charles was waiting for him, took much longer. Erik rested his head against the cupboard with his eyes closed, inhaled deeply, and slowly counted down from twenty. He hadn’t felt this terrible in ages. The thoughts that kept whirling around in his head revolved about all the disgusting things he wanted to _do_ to this poor, poor kid in his living room, and he found himself appalled by the nature of his own thoughts, of what he was capable of thinking about a teenager. A boy who was even younger than his own daughter. He didn’t dare imagine what Anya would say to that. She would probably never be able to face her father again.

As he finally walked back, he hoped that he somehow managed to keep the unhappy grimace off his face even though guilt heavily weighed on his shoulders. Charles didn’t seem to have moved one bit. For one terrible moment the idea of Charles having choked to death on his own vomit while Erik had been quietly panicking in the kitchen crossed his mind, and he quickly walked back to the couch.

As it happened, it looked like Charles had just passed out -- at last. He was curled up on his side on the sofa, one pale hand cradling his own face, his knees drawn up into the foetal position. Like that, he looked even younger, and Erik felt all the more disgusted with himself in the moment before the relief hit. Drunk Charles, as it turned out, was rather a handful. Erik had high hopes that he'd be easier to manage if he was unconscious. 

He set the glass down on the coffee table and reached over to pull the blanket down from the back of the settee. When he settled it over Charles's body, the boy shifted a little, murmured in his sleep, but to Erik's very great relief, did not wake. Carefully, Erik lifted his head and tucked the cushion under it, and then stood looking down at Charles for a moment, as if to make sure he really was out cold. 

"Good," Erik muttered to himself, once he was sure, as if to reassure himself. As an afterthought, he reached for the wastepaper basket and set it down near Charles's head. Better safe than sorry. Charles was likely to have more than a bit of an upset stomach when he woke up, if Erik was any judge. 

Still, despite the seedy situation he'd saved Charles from; despite the way his conscience cringed away from his feelings about Charles, the guilt didn’t keep him from stroking himself off later that night. He couldn’t fall asleep, not with what Charles had told him, tried to _do_ to him.

*  
When Erik awoke, the sun had just started to dawn. It took him a while to realise that it was, thankfully, Saturday, and he could probably turn over and sleep for at least another three hours before he’d get bored of his bed and go out for a run.

Only that he couldn’t. Not really.

As much as he dreaded leaving his bedroom, he couldn't exactly cower in it all morning hoping Charles would go away. Steeling himself, he opened the door and crept out, praying that Charles was still asleep on the couch. Which he was.

Carefully, Erik walked over to him. He had hoped that the boy hadn’t been sick during the night. The bin next to the couch was still empty, he noticed with relief. Charles was still breathing as well. Only the colour of his cheeks worried Erik a little. He was gentle when he placed his palm upon the boy’s forehead to check if he was feverish but he seemed still to be doing okay.

Beneath his palm, Charles furrowed his eyebrows and groaned faintly: the first possible signs of a hangover.

“Go back to sleep, Charles.” Erik’s voice was warm with affection and pity for the boy. He removed his hand, and Charles slowly cracked one eye open.

“Erik…?”

"Nobody else here." Erik smiled wryly, his voice pitched low in deference to the headache he imagined Charles must have. He still recalled his own first hangover with horrendous vividness. He still couldn't stand hearing a radio blaring first thing in the morning, thirty years later. 

"Oh, god…" Slowly, like a very old man, Charles wrenched himself over onto his back on the settee and blinked up at the ceiling. "How did I get here?" 

Erik took a moment to offer a silent prayer to the heavens. Maybe, if Charles was disoriented, this was a good sign. Maybe he didn't recall anything about the previous evening after he'd left the dance; maybe Erik would be left to stew alone in his awkward feelings about Charles's mouth and eyes and awkward crush; maybe they could go on as they had been, and Erik wouldn't have to put distance between them, just to be a good grown-up. He cleared his throat. 

"You texted me...remember? To get you from school?" 

"Oh…" Charles scrunched up his face in an expression of quiet agony, one hand lifting to press over his eyes. "Yeah...ugh, god. Yes, I remember now. I'm sorry, Erik." 

"It's no trouble." Erik tried not to let his intrigue and anxiety show on his face. If Charles remembered that, Erik could no longer be sure of how much of the rest of the evening he remembered. The image of Charles's pleading face, eyes huge and mouth parted in invitation, was still horrifically clear in Erik's mind's eye. "I was hardly going to leave you to the mercy of those other boys, after all. Charles, you shouldn't get mixed up with such people." 

"Oh, I know." Charles sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb and then opened his bleary eyes and looked straight at Erik. "I know, I -- it was stupid. Thank you, though, for picking me up. Really. You didn't have to do that." 

Despite himself, Erik smiled. "Like I say, Charles: it was no trouble." 

Charles moved his head as if he was going to nod -- in fact, he enacted most of the lead-up to a nod before he lurched out of the seat all of a sudden, one hand stretched out in front of himself, zombie-style. "Sorry -- I'm gonna --" 

"On your left," Erik deadpanned after him, as Charles staggered out of the room and into the nearest bathroom. Honestly, if he escaped at this stage with nothing more than a bit of a hungover Charles in his flat, Erik was doing well.

It took a while before Charles finally emerged again, and when he did, he looked even paler than before.

“Are you all right?” Erik asked. He had wondered whether or not he should make breakfast for both of them but it seemed as though the last thing Charles wanted right now was to eat scrambled eggs.

“I… Uhm…” He ruffled his messy bedhair, looking even more confused than before. “You don’t happen to have a spare toothbrush, do you?”

“No, but I’ve got mouthwash in the little cabinet beneath the sink. You may want to try that.”

“Yes. Yes. Uhm. Thanks.” As sheepish as Charles looked when he sneaked back into the bathroom, Erik couldn’t help but feel weirdly affectionate towards him. He knew he probably shouldn’t but there was no way around it. Something about Charles awoke his need to protect.

In the meantime, Erik went back to the kitchen where he listlessly fixed himself a bowl of cereal. Charles joined him a few minutes later, looking a little less disgusted with himself, and sat down on a chair after a moment of hesitation. It was strange, both of them sitting here in Erik’s kitchen at this time of the day after Charles had spent the night at his home.

“Would you like some?” Erik offered, holding up his bowl and Charles nodded.

“I’ll give it a try.”

“Hold on.”

Erik was well aware now of the boy's eyes watching his every move intently, but he hadn't had the forethought earlier to remember to change out of his sleeping clothes. He could have at least put on a pair of pyjamas, Erik chided himself as he poured the cereal into the bowl, instead of dancing around here now in front of Charles, dressed in nothing but a shirt and a pair of boxers. Really fucking clever. The domesticity of pyjamas would have been bad enough, but as Erik pottered around the kitchen in search of the milk, he couldn't help but realise quite how little the boxers did to hide his...assets. And Erik didn't need anyone else to tell him that he filled out a pair of boxers better than most men. 

He had resigned himself to just dealing with the mild embarrassment until he turned around, bowl in hand, and noticed immediately where Charles's eyeline was pitched. Definitely, in every sense, below the waist. Erik felt his cheeks colour slightly as he set the cereal down in front of his unanticipated guest. 

"Here you go," he said, "eat slowly. I don't want you throwing up in my kitchen, you hear?" 

Charles nodded dumbly, his eyes wide. It actually took him a moment to remember his manners and look up at Erik's face instead of at his crotch, and Erik snatched up a newspaper from the counter to hold in front of himself like some blushing handmaiden. 

"I'll be back in a second," he said gruffly, and headed for the bedroom. 

A litany of curses paraded through Erik's head as he slammed the door shut and started hunting around for a pair of sweatpants. Apparently, Charles's little...crush...was not a product of the alcohol, then. Part of Erik wondered if he should bring it up, tell Charles they couldn't see each other again, but that would require him to actually _mention_ the bloody awkward situation and surely --

"Shit." Erik peered at his reflection in the full-length mirror, trying to decide whether the grey sweatpants were actually any better than the boxers on their own when it came to making him look respectable. Suddenly he couldn't understand why he wasn't being arrested in the street on a regular basis. Did he always look this obscene? Was it better dressed to the right? Goddamn Charles for making him have an existential crisis about his penis in the first place. Maybe he'd have to wear a kilt from now on just to convince himself that nobody was in danger of getting an eye put out. 

When Erik had eventually settled on a navy blue pair (seemed to cling less to the bulge…) Charles was, to Erik's very great relief, munching his way slowly through the bowl of cereal. He looked up and smiled when Erik came in, and Erik smiled back, sinking into the chair opposite. 

"So," he said. "Do you want to tell me why you got so drunk last night, or should we agree never to speak of it again?" 

“Oh. Well.” Charles shoved around a couple of flakes of cereal in his bowl. Erik had a feeling Charles avoided looking at him on purpose. “You know how people at school can be… They… We talked and then someone suddenly said they had smuggled alcohol to the party…” He shrugged. “We somehow ended up playing drinking games. I… I didn’t want to be called a coward.”

“You thought drinking would make you _cool_?” Perhaps he put too much pathos into this question, something that made him sound too much like a judgemental parent but who could really blame him? He had been young once as well. One time he had overdone it with drinking at a party when his so-called friends had dared him to binge drink, and his mother had to pick him up at the hospital with alcohol poisoning. Erik knew how dangerous this was, especially for people with no experience at all.

Charles made a face at him. “If you put it like that, it sounds tremendously idiotic.”

“I’m glad you came to that conclusion eventually.”

Even though he wanted to keep up his strict demeanour, Charles’s crooked smile shattered that plan. Erik couldn’t resist ruffling the boy’s unkempt hair with grumpy affection; Charles ducked his head with a shy smile.

"Thanks," he said into his cereal, so quietly that at first Erik wasn't sure he'd heard. 

"Thanks?" he echoed. 

Charles smiled wanly. "You heard. For coming to get me, when I was being such an idiot...it wasn't like you had to. I'm just some kid you're being nice to out of the goodness of your heart; I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to bother you." 

The affection swelled up again in Erik's chest and he reached across the table to set his hand over Charles's where it gripped the spoon. "Yes," he said, firmly, and with uncharacteristic intensity, "you do, Charles. You thought it would be a good idea because you knew I would come and get you, and I'm flattered that you thought of me, honestly. I'm…" Erik hesitated a moment. "I'm glad you knew, I suppose. That you could rely on me." 

This was all getting terribly mushy. Charles's hand was warm under Erik's fingertips, and his blue eyes seemed to soften as Erik looked at him. Charles, visibly affected, nodded softly. 

"I'm grateful," he said, quietly. "I'm sure I was -- a handful last night, and I'm sorry, but I want you to know how glad I am that I met you." 

God damn the boy. Something clenched around Erik's heart, and he had to pull his hand away, turning his attention back to his mostly-empty cup of coffee. After a speech like that, how could he possibly tell Charles that they couldn't see each other any more? How could he tell Charles that this was wrong and awkward and heading straight for trouble at 100 miles an hour, when Charles was so freaking grateful that they'd met? 

Erik couldn't do it. Six months ago, he would have said he was not the kind of person to put sentimentality before logic, but things, apparently, had changed. Besides -- maybe Charles had forgotten what he'd said. Erik could but hope. 

"I'm glad too," he said softly, and smiled.


	5. Chapter 5

If there ever was occasion for Charles to congratulate himself for having done something, this was it. Not because he was a good pupil -- the best in his year, in fact. Not even because he took care of Raven most of the time and tried to navigate things at home when his mother wasn’t present -- whether physically or mentally. No: the reason he congratulated himself, mentally patted his own shoulder, was because he had managed to successfully bullshit his way through the Awkward Morning After.

He usually wasn’t good at playing stupid. Raven always called him a terrible liar and an even worse actor. But this performance was practically Oscar-worthy. Erik didn’t seem to suspect that Charles, in fact, did remember every single detail from the Awkward Night Before. How he had reluctantly agreed to join in with the stupid drinking games at that boring school party. How he had asked Erik to pick him up, even though he had been more out of it then than when he had finally arrived at Erik’s flat. And by the time he kissed him...

Well. In retrospect, Charles could admit that the alcohol at that point was making him stupidly bold, rather than blindly gropey. Plenty of his classmates were touchy-feely drunks, wanting to hug and kiss anyone and everything just for the sake of it. Maybe Erik thought Charles was like that, but in reality, the drunken moment with Erik had only made clear to Charles what he wanted to do to him all the time. He'd barely grazed Erik's lips with his own, but even that lingered clear in his memory. Charles had got himself off to it more than once: imagining how it might have been if Erik had leaned in, kissed back; remembering how Erik's arse looked in his little grey boxers, and God, if the view from the back was good, when he turned around, Charles's brain was putty. If he'd ever been in any doubt about his feelings for Erik, that evening had set him straight. 

The only problem was, of course, that now Erik thought Charles either hadn't meant it or had forgotten it, or both; and moreover, Charles's morning after performance didn't seem to have stopped Erik from wanting to avoid him. 

Admittedly, Charles couldn't be sure this was what Erik was doing. But the man had been catching Charles's train to work every day for months, and yet Charles hadn't seen him once since that night. Certainly, something could have come up at work that required him to get an earlier train, but the timing was suspicious, to say the least. Charles couldn't help but get anxious. It didn't make things any easier that he had nobody to talk to about the whole thing. Not Raven; he already knew she'd be no help. And there was nobody else to help Charles figure out what he even wanted to do. The irony was, if it had been any other issue, he would have gone at once to Erik. 

It was over a week before Charles broke, and sent a text. _How are you?_ It seemed innocuous enough. 

His heart still jumped when Erik replied: _Fine. Are you all sorted with your college applications etc now?_

Charles sighed under his breath. How very Erik to be so businesslike. And in truth, Charles was not sorted: several of the forms had confused him in the extreme.

 _Not quite,_ he texted back. _There are still some things that I don’t quite understand. Care to help?_

It took a while before Erik replied. Charles tried to resist the temptation to sneak a glance at his phone every ten seconds; it helped that he was in class and couldn’t be obvious about texting someone. Erik didn’t reply until the lesson was over.

_Sure. There’s a coffee shop near your school that I know. We can meet up there._

As Charles read Erik’s text once, twice, he couldn’t suppress the slight pang of disappointment at the back of his mind. Erik had never asked him before to meet up anywhere apart from his own flat. He had hoped that he and Erik could be alone again because while he was still ashamed of his behaviour beyond belief, he missed the strange intimacy that existed between them when they were alone together, just the two of them in conversation.

Still, he wasn’t going to be an ungrateful brat about it. At this point, his desperation to see Erik again was so strong, he’d take anything he could get.

_Okay. I know the place you’re talking about. I should be out in an hour and a half._

*

Erik was already waiting for him when he arrived, gracefully holding the tiny espresso cup with his long fingers and sipping from it, and Charles would have been content to just stare at him from a distance if a group of girls hadn’t pushed him aside with their loud chattering and caught Erik’s attention. He lifted his hand in an awkward attempt at greeting, then pointed at the counter to insinuate that he was going to order something first before he’d join Erik.

Erik nodded acknowledgement, and Charles turned his attention to the slow moving queue at the counter. For some reason, Erik's demeanour was making him nervous about the wait, as if the other man might leap to his feet and slip off if Charles didn't get back to the table soon. Even when Charles had acquired his latte and made his way over to the table, the strange tension in Erik was still there, his shoulders hunched and his posture radiating awkwardness. 

Charles eyed him quizzically as he pulled out a chair and sat. "Are you okay?" 

Erik raised an eyebrow. "Of course. We're here to talk about your problems, not mine." He cleared his throat and held out a hand. "Do you want to show me what's been giving you trouble?" 

No small talk, then. This wasn't like Erik at all, not in the last several months at least. Charles reached into his bag and rummaged for the folder of papers, but his eyes were still on Erik. He'd expected some awkwardness, but this was beyond what he'd anticipated. 

"We haven't met in a café before," he said, going for casual. Erik shrugged. 

"Seemed appropriate. Okay, what's the problem?" He pulled the sheaf of papers across the table and began leafing through them, his movements brutishly efficient. While Charles struggled to form his thoughts into coherent sentences to make Erik understand what exactly was still causing some problems, he was also trying not to get too distracted by Erik’s glasses. He had seen him wearing them only a couple of times before but it was always enough to freeze his brain for a few uncomfortable seconds.

Much to his chagrin, Erik was _good_ at explaining, terrific even, and thus Charles's confusion over certain matters had been dissolved soon enough. He hadn’t even finished his latte yet.

“Any other questions?” Erik asked, even as he began pointedly gathering up the papers and putting away his glasses, the efficient movements making it evident that he didn’t want to answer anything else.

“I…”

“Yes?”

“Why are you being so _weird_?”

Not a single muscle twitched in Erik’s face. It was unnerving.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s just,” Charles began and took a deep breath while he gesticulated wildly with his hands. “Ever since… since _that night_ which must not be named, you’re so… so distant with me.” He let out a frustrated little sigh. “I know I was a right idiot then, and I apologise. I didn’t want you to see me like that. But still. I’m trying to work my way around this -- this weirdness between us, and I don’t know how to make it go away.”

Erik cleared his throat awkwardly. Somehow, seeing the visible uncertainty on his face was even more upsetting than the stiffness of before -- Erik was nothing if not contained and efficient, but the look on his face at the moment was not contained at all. On the contrary, wariness was bleeding out all over his features. 

"Charles, I…" Erik sighed, stopped. "I know you were very drunk, and you probably don't remember the whole of that evening. But I remember, and it makes me think that our -- meeting -- at my house is perhaps a bad idea." 

Nervousness made his voice even more precise than usual, and Charles felt himself flush unhappily. He took a breath. 

"I do," he said, quietly. When Erik shot him a quizzical look, he forced himself to continue. "I mean, I do remember. I know I tried to -- to k--" 

" _Charles_." Erik cut him off sternly, glancing to and fro around the coffee shop as if he expected to be descended upon by armed guards at any moment. Charles sighed. 

"Look, I just, I sort of thought we were...friends, almost?" 

Erik laughed curtly. The emotions flitting across his face were too complicated a mixture for Charles to readily identify. "Charles, you are younger than my oldest daughter. You told me things that night that make me think I cannot, in good conscience, continue to be...friends with you, without feeling as if I may be damaging you by encouraging other things that would be inappropriate." Erik's voice had dipped very low now, and he was staring into his cup of coffee like it held the secrets of the universe. Charles bit his lip. 

"I wouldn't," he said, carefully. "I mean, I wouldn't do anything like that again, if - if you didn't want me to." 

Erik's look turned sharp and Charles hastily hurried on. 

"But we get on, don't we? You liked having someone else around the house. You said so." 

Perhaps, Charles thought wildly to himself, if he just continued to behave as if there was nothing complicated or odd about this, Erik would let things go back to the way they were, and they could get past the part where Charles now knew how far gone he was on this man, and had stupidly told Erik so. 

“I did, yes,” Erik admitted with much reluctance and his eyes pointedly trained on the empty cup in his hands. “I do enjoy your company, don’t get me wrong. And I also thought we were… friends. Of sorts.”

“But?”

“I've just told you, haven’t I? This isn’t okay, Charles.”

Frustrated, Charles reached for the remains of Erik’s empty sugar packet and started to pick it apart while Erik watched his fingers fumble about with the paper.

“It’s not _fair_ ,” he muttered. He was aware that he was beginning to sound like a spoilt child but if it helped to make Erik understand how unhappy he was with the situation, it was worth it. “I promised already that I won’t do that again, that I'll behave myself because, frankly, I’m still kicking myself for letting you know in the first place what I… what I feel. And I want to go back to what was before because I miss it, and you --”

“ _Charles_.” Erik’s voice cut through his rambling, sharp and unwavering and absolutely startling. As he dared to glance up to meet Erik’s gaze, the other man looked... distressed. To put it mildly. “Promise to listen to me carefully because I’m going to say this only once.”

Charles nodded.

Erik regarded him for a moment, then sighed. “It’s not entirely because of _you_ that I wish to stop this. It’s because of… what I’m capable of doing to you. I’m _afraid_ , Charles. I’m not good for you.”

“Erik…”

“No, listen to me.” Even though he wanted to stop Erik right then and there, he bit his lip and stayed quiet. “You’re young. You could be my _son_ , for God’s sake. I won’t take advantage of you like that.”

Advantage.

_Advantage._

Charles’s throat went dry at the implications of this word. Erik… Could he...? Surely this wasn’t Charles just foolishly daring to hope...?

"I'm _not_ your son, though." Charles could feel his voice emerging a little rougher than usual, could hear the pulse of blood in his ears now. "You're not my father, you're not my teacher, you wouldn't be abusing any kind of authority. You're just -- "

" _Don't_ do this, Charles." Erik pressed a hand to his face, long fingers covering his eyes. "This isn't a mathematical problem; you can't hope to solve it with logic." 

"It's not a _problem_ at all!" This was it, now, the subject out in the open even if neither of them had spoken its name. Perhaps if Charles could just get Erik to see reason, if he could convince him to _try_ , then this could go somewhere, and Charles could claw back what he'd never realised he had until Erik took it away. But something told him that if Erik got up and left the table, that would be it. The moment would have passed, and there would be no more chances. 

Spurred by an impulse, Charles reached across the table and took Erik's hand. Softly, imploringly, he said, " _Erik_." 

He didn't even know what he was hoping for, but it wasn't what he got: Erik pushing back his chair abruptly and jerking his hand from Charles's grip as if he'd been burned. He was moving even before Charles had realised what his intentions were. The look on his face, in the brief second before he turned and headed for the door, was unreadable, and Charles couldn't let things end this way, not before he knew what that look meant. 

"Erik, wait -- _Erik_ \--" 

Erik's legs were longer, and Charles had never been much of an athlete, but his panic carried him, stumbling between tables and tripping out of the door before it had time to close fully behind Erik. Ahead of him on the pavement, Erik was striding purposefully in the direction of the nearest train station, moving quickly enough that Charles had to half-run to keep up with him. Erik's head was down, hands in his coat pockets. He didn't want to be noticed; never did. 

Well, Xaviers, if nothing else, were always capable of creating a scene. 

"Erik Lehnsherr!" He was half-shouting now, trotting after Erik's departing form. "Stop! You can't just run away from me; I need to --" 

His outstretched fingers brushed the back of Erik's overcoat, and that was it, his last conscious move before Erik turned on his heel and grasped Charles's wrist, manhandling him bodily into the cover of a bus-shelter on the pavement. His eyes were like flint, fierce, and as he was pressed up into the corner of the shelter, Charles felt, for the first time, a flicker of something like fear. 

"You don't know what you need, boy." Erik's voice was low, thrumming with some strange intensity Charles couldn't place. "You have no idea what's good for you." 

Charles opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the next second, Erik's hands were fisted in his lapels and his lips were on Charles's, robbing him quite effectively of the opportunity. 

In some ways, it was more like an attack than a kiss. There was no softness in it, none of the hesitance of a first kiss; just Erik's clever mouth stealing Charles's breath, his tongue tracing the shapes of Charles's teeth until Charles recovered himself enough to kiss back. Erik's grip was brutal, and his mouth more so, moving wet and purposeful on Charles's until Charles felt he was about to come out of his skin. He moaned, helpless, clutching at Erik's coat. 

That, apparently, was too much. Erik broke away, panting, fingers tight once more around Charles's wrist. Charles found he didn't know if it had been ten seconds or ten minutes, but Erik was wild-eyed and trembling finely with what could have been fury or arousal or both. 

"That's why we can't be _friends_ any more," Erik said, his mouth twisting over the words. "I would ruin you." 

“Who says I don’t _want_ you to?” Charles shot back, half-hoping that this -- whatever it was -- spelled victory for Charles. Sheer blatant disgust crossed Erik’s features, though, and with a grunt, he let go of Charles, pushed himself away from him.

Charles watched him leave wordlessly, glued for a moment to the spot where Erik had kissed him. One heartbeat, and he followed him.

“Go away,” Erik muttered as Charles finally caught up with him. “I’m going home.”

“I’m not leaving, Erik. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m _what_?”

For one fearful moment, Charles thought the other man was going to stop and strike him right then and there; the tone in his voice certainly indicated as much.

“You’re _ridiculous_ ,” Charles repeated nonetheless with that stubborn look on his face that Raven hated so much, and continued to follow Erik down the road to the train station. “We have to get on the same train. I can’t just stay away.”

A deep, deep sigh of defeat and Erik slowed his pace. At last.

At the station, Erik pointedly ignored every inroad into conversation Charles tried to make. Once the train arrived, Charles had to admit to himself that it was futile to keep trying to talk to the other man -- Erik purposefully sat down on a seat two rows away from Charles while Charles himself fought down the ugly feeling in his chest that twisted and turned and made him downright _miserable_.

Back home, at their shared station, Erik didn’t even so much as look at him when Charles said goodbye. 

One thing was for sure: whatever Charles had expected to come of their meeting, he couldn't have envisaged anything as fucked up as this.


	6. Chapter 6

Erik Lehnsherr was headed straight to hell. There were no two ways about it, not after that display this afternoon. As he strode from the train station back to his apartment, head bowed against the wind, Erik cursed life, the universe and everything under his breath, but especially Charles fucking Xavier, for getting him into this mess in the first place. 

It wasn't as if Erik made a habit of jerking it (first shamefacedly, and then with a growing sense of resignation) over teenage boys. He was certain he hadn't kissed one since he was a teenager himself. But that was the problem: Charles wasn't -- and this was the oldest cliché in the book, but nevertheless true -- he wasn't _like_ other boys. When they were together, Charles was just Charles, a person with whom Erik had made a rare connection, and the age difference became irrelevant. Which was why, of course, Erik had to fight to remind himself that it was there, and that it was huge. Charles was gorgeous, entrancing, from his quick sense of humour to the freckles on his nose, and he was just embarking upon his adult life. He didn't need, didn't _deserve_ , to be weighed down by Erik, middle-aged divorcé and father of three. Whatever Erik's baser instincts wanted, and whatever Charles thought he wanted, it just wasn't an option. 

In retrospect, Erik told himself bitterly, kissing him had been a mistake. Whatever he'd been trying to prove, it hadn't worked. Yes, they needed to be apart because Erik couldn't _be_ around Charles any more without wanting to cup his jaw and kiss him, hard and thorough and possessive, that was true enough. But if he'd meant to scare Charles, to punish him, then the look on Charles's face when Erik pulled away was enough indication that he'd failed. Charles's dark, kiss-bitten mouth, the sound he'd made -- 

Erik clenched his fists in the depths of his pockets and shook his head. His first resolution had been the right one, after all. There was no room for selfishness here. He would just have to be strong, and ignore any entreaties from Charles for future contact. Sometimes, after all, one had to be cruel to be kind. 

Unsurprisingly, the first text message from Charles arrived shortly after Erik had got inside his flat, shrugged off his coat and started to make coffee. Steeling his resolve, Erik deleted it, unopened, and went back to his coffee. The next three or four messages met the same fate, and then the phone went silent. This left Erik momentarily confused, then traitorously disappointed, and finally relieved, before the phone buzzed again several hours later and Erik realised he was just being lulled into a false sense of security. He hadn't _meant_ to look at the text, but there it was, open in his hand all the same. 

_Damn_ that boy. 

_I bet you haven't got anything in your fridge. Let me bring you pizza?_

Erik sighed. Any number of responses tripped through his mind, things he knew Charles would have found funny if they hadn't been too horrendously inappropriate for Erik to say out loud. Something about how Charles had to do better than cheesy porno plots if he wanted to change Erik's mind; except that of course, Charles really _was_ a pizza boy, which somehow made it even funnier. 

But no, Erik couldn't encourage him. Wait it out, that's what he had to do. Pointedly, he deleted the text message, and then turned off his phone. 

As chivalrous as his intentions were, not wanting to taint Charles’s innocence with his lecherous old man thoughts, Erik wasn’t entirely being the gentleman, the _adult_ he knew he should have been. More than once he caught himself thinking about Charles with fantasies that made him feel even more guilty than he already did, and it seemed as though the only remedy to get rid of that horrible feeling was to either take a shower or wash his hands. It was no wonder that he had started to develop the habit of scrubbing his hands thoroughly several times a day.

Charles was always there, in his mind, but also in physical form. Each morning when he went to work. But also in random places such as the supermarket, the park, the town centre… Erik wasn’t stupid. The boy knew Erik’s favourite places, knew his routines (and Erik cursed himself for having told Charles so much about his life). It wasn’t rocket science. Charles deliberately showed up in the places he knew Erik would be. But perhaps that was crazy, Erik told himself. Maybe it was all just a figment of his imagination, a result of his paranoia.

They both were to blame. That bloody Xavier boy was persistent, Erik acknowledged that much, but if Charles was determined, what was Erik? Erik, who passed Charles’s school more often than he would have liked to admit, even if that meant that he was late back at work. What did it make him, when he noticed Charles in his PE lesson outside on the field, and stared at him for several moments, unable to tear his eyes away from the boy’s strong, surprisingly well-toned legs? At that juncture, Erik knew in his heart that he was crossing a line. There was no reason for him to have detoured halfway across the neighbourhood in search of that one _particular_ corner shop near Charles's school, even if he told himself they were the only place that reliably stocked microwave popcorn. There was certainly no reason for Erik to have apparently developed a substance dependency on the goddamn popcorn over a period of two weeks. 

But there was something compelling about _getting away with it_. Working out what days of the week would have Charles out on the field in his tight little shorts, squirrelling away the images for future reference, and all the while knowing that Charles had no idea. It wasn't the worst thing Erik could have done, not by a long shot. A weaker man would have taken Charles up on his offer that day at the bus stop; would have taken him home and fucked him rough and thoroughly over the couch; would have ruined him once and for all. This, Erik's little afternoon ventures across town -- this was just looking. And there was no harm in that, after all. 

The problem with the looking, though, was that it seemed to have become an addiction. Erik had a vague memory from school of being dissuaded from looking at pornography because, apparently, it led to murder. At the time, Erik had dismissed this as utterly ludicrous, but now he began to think maybe he understood what was meant. Watching Charles like this and explaining it away was all well and good, but the more Erik got away with, the more he wanted. He couldn't remember, now, the last time he'd got off to anything but the image of Charles in his soccer outfit, sweetly curved backside obscenely outlined in his silky shorts, and the more he told himself he ought to stop, the more impossible the idea seemed. Like a junkie, Erik was back the next day, sitting in a parked car like some sort of paedophile. One of these days, somebody was probably going to call the cops and have him arrested, but God -- something _about_ Charles made it so difficult to keep away, even when it was Erik who'd forced space between them. 

He was fucked up. He'd been _right_ to thrust Charles away from him, if this was the sort of man he was. But that didn't make things any easier, or provide a solution to Erik's growing problem. Instead, the entire cycle just began again.

It was one evening after a long day of work when they faced each other again and there was no escape, even if they had wanted to avoid each other. Charles certainly seemed pleasantly surprised, whereas Erik would have loved to make a run for it -- except that, due to the circumstances, that wasn't an option. They shared the lift up to his flat; Erik dressed in his jogging clothes, Charles in his pizza delivery boy outfit and carrying two boxes that smelled delicious.

Erik nodded in acknowledgement (he wasn’t _rude_ after all) and Charles gave him a bright smile, accompanied by a perfectly calm, “Erik.”

God, how he could be so fucking calm was almost infuriating. Erik quietly cursed himself, his life and his choices. Only two weeks earlier, Charles had been desperate for contact, and now here he was gazing placidly at the insides of the elevator doors while Erik stood beside him feeling like his skin was itching. There was no way the tables had turned so completely. Even knowing it was a bad idea, Erik had to push, just a little, the lure of it like a loose tooth. 

"Who's the pizza for?" 

Charles shot him a glance then, and Erik latched onto it. 

"Hartman, tenth floor." Charles lifted the pizzas a little in his hand in indication. 

"Both of them?" 

And there it was, the flicker Erik had been waiting for, something wary and a little hopeful in Charles's eyes. "No-o...the second one is, uh. Spare." 

Now the silence between them was electrified, the taste of it shifted. Erik cleared his throat, the sound feeling eerily loud in the enclosed space. "I thought it might have been for me." 

Charles's eyes went dark, cautiousness and want warring visibly on his face. "I thought it might have been, too," he said, carefully, after a moment, and Erik's heartbeat started to pound in his throat. "But then I thought you might not want it, and then I'd just have to take it home again." 

Something dipped in Erik like a sudden pressure drop, and he was surprised at how measured his voice sounded when he managed to speak. "No, I...I could go for pizza." 

This was it. Charles said nothing, only looked back at him, and Erik was sure they both knew now that this was not a conversation about pizza, never had been. Charles had brought the other pizza on purpose; Charles had wanted, still, and Erik couldn't push him away again, not this time, not -- 

The elevator dinged, and Charles coughed slightly. "Your floor. I, uh, have to go up to tenth, but…"

"You know where I live," Erik said, and forced himself to walk out of the elevator without looking back over his shoulder, feeling like Odysseus walking out of Hades. 

The three minutes between Erik entering his apartment and the knock sounding on the door felt like three hours. Erik's pulse was racing ridiculously in his throat, everything in him nervous and fearful and anticipatory, his higher brain functions shut off under the weight of it. When the knock came, Erik jerked the door open before Charles had even had time to lower his hand, and then he was there, this stupid boy in his stupid little pizza-boy uniform, and Erik couldn't wait a moment longer. 

"The pizza --" Charles started, holding it up. Erik took it from him one-handed and tossed it onto the nearest flat surface without pausing to look. 

"Fuck the pizza," he said, hauling Charles into the room by his arm and kicking the door shut behind him. A second later, Charles's back was against it and Erik looked at him for a moment, looked him full in the face. "Remember, this is what you wanted." 

He had half-expected that the boy would have a moment of doubt and panic, that he’d back out in the end and save himself before it was too late. Perhaps Erik had wanted to see the fear in Charles’s face. No such thing could be found anywhere, though. Anticipation glimmered in his eyes and a mad grin was spreading on his face. Erik only dimly registered the determined tug at his shirt, how Charles pulled him in. And when the boy tipped up his face just slightly, Erik gave in, cupped his face and pressed a hard kiss to his lips.

In all those moments when he had imagined how it could be, kissing Charles here in the safety of his flat, he hadn’t expected him to be so bold. Charles apparently knew exactly what he wanted, despite his age and lack of experience (a thought that uncoiled a possessive feeling in Erik’s chest), and he didn’t ask nicely. He took what he wanted, mouth pliant and greedy under Erik’s. He nipped at his lips, wasn’t shy to use his tongue and when Erik put a little more effort into it, tongue-fucking Charles into submission, the boy emitted the most pleased sounds he had ever heard.

It was dizzying, after all this time, kissing Charles like this, feeling the strong blunt hands thread into his hair and fist there. Last time, at the bus stop, there'd been barely any contact beyond their mouths, but this time, Erik was free to feel the compact solidity of Charles's body against his, pinned between Erik and the door. The height difference, Erik noted absently, was perfect, as if they'd been made to fit together like this, Charles's head upturned to Erik's kiss. Charles clutched at Erik's hair, at his collar, hooked an arm around his neck as if he meant to physically climb Erik, and when his foot curved around Erik's calf, Erik couldn't help but groan. 

"God, Erik --" Charles broke away, panting, as Erik wrapped an arm around his waist, half-lifted him up against the door. At the new angle, Erik was free to thrust a thigh between Charles's, supporting most of his weight, and Charles cried out weakly when Erik leaned in to feel the smooth expanse of the boy's throat against his cheek, his mouth. He was so perfect, his skin unblemished and pale. Erik wanted nothing in life so much as he wanted to mark Charles up at this moment, suck bruises into the untouched skin until Charles was breathless and writhing in his arms. 

Charles seemed to be having the same thought. With his arms hooked around Erik’s neck, he pushed himself up until he could wrap his legs fully around Erik’s waist and lock them behind his back. Erik took the cue and wrapped his arms around the boy, then carried him over to his couch. Charles was heavier than he had expected, but to Erik's mind, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He was compact and solid against Erik and that was all that mattered.

They collapsed in a tangle, the seat cushions coming up unexpectedly against Erik's shins, but Charles barely faltered, only breaking away to laugh breathlessly before he dove back in, nipping at Erik's mouth with sharp white teeth. Emboldened, Erik sank his fingers into the thick of Charles's hair, low at the back of his skull where it curled against his neck, and tugged, letting the heat ripple through him when Charles moaned in response. He was _so_ very responsive, and that, too, was a surprise; in Erik's fantasies, Charles had been shy and virginal, but this, the reality, was better, Charles all hands and hitched breaths. His mouth, that sinful deep-cherry mouth that had driven Erik mad for weeks, was even softer than it looked, and when Erik teethed at the lush curve of it, sucked on it, Charles whimpered and shivered and arched his back, desperate for contact. 

They'd landed with Charles mostly underneath, one of his knees drawn up beneath his body and his back against the corner of the couch, but the space it forced between them was swiftly becoming unbearably great. Charles, quite evidently, was thinking the same thing, tugging at Erik's waist and gasping little frustrated sounds into Erik's mouth at being hindered by their position. 

"Please," Charles rasped out, "let me -- can I --" 

"Mmmm?" The words drifted to Erik's ears as if through honey. In the hollow of his throat, Charles smelt of cinnamon and laundry and clean skin, that warm boy-smell, and Erik was swiftly becoming drunk on it as he nuzzled, seeking out the secret places with his tongue that made Charles stutter over his words and lift his hips. Beneath him, Charles was panting, his hands clutching helplessly at Erik's shoulder, at his waist; when he levered himself up, Erik barely noticed but for the way he was pinned back against the couch as Charles resettled himself in Erik's lap. 

"Oh god," Charles breathed, and there _was_ a little fear there now, or disbelief intermingled with his desire. His fingers smoothed over Erik's scalp, almost cradling it against Charles's own neck, and then Charles rolled his hips and caught his breath and Erik groaned too, hands slipping down the valley of Charles's spine to cup his arse. Charles was hard, teenage-boy-hard in his jeans against Erik's stomach, and that was enough to set Erik stiffening further against the swell of the boy's backside, just the thought of it, _Jesus_. 

With a choked up sound, Charles buried his face in the crook of Erik’s neck, hot breath against sweaty skin, and Erik shifted Charles weight until he was properly pressed up right against him, their cocks aligned and only separated by cloth. He could feel Charles’s mouth grazing over his sensitive neck, how he kissed, licked, sucked, bit at it -- the boy was insatiable. Probably because he had never _had_ this before. And with sudden clarity, Erik remembered the boy now sitting on him, grinding against his dick, was still practically a child.

“Charles… We… stop --”

“No.” When Charles lifted his head to kiss Erik again, Erik's breath caught in his throat; Charles’s face was flushed, his eyelids heavy and his mouth looked more than inviting. He didn’t resist when the boy kissed him again, deep and wet, but at least protested weakly. “M’close,” Charles sighed against Erik’s mouth, and then --

“Erik…” He looked so helpless as his hips stuttered against Erik when he came. 

" _Fuck_." Erik bit his lip, as if that could serve to tamp down the surge of want and shame that rose up in his chest at the look on Charles's face, at the sensation of it, the boy's cock jerking as it spilled between them, pressed flush to Erik's. _Fuck_. Charles was still clinging to him, heavy-lidded and trembling, his hips still rolling reflexively through the aftershocks, and if Erik had felt guilty before, now he felt utterly condemned. 

It didn't help that he was also achingly hard, his traitorous hands still clutching Charles against him, reluctant to relinquish the perfect pressure of his body against the ridge of Erik's dick. 

"Fuck!" 

That was it. It was too much all at once, the want and the shame and the languid fucked-out virgin in his lap, and Erik stood up before he could let his body tease him out of it again. Charles slipped from his lap with a soft sound of surprise, landing awkwardly on legs weak from his orgasm, but Erik didn't let himself look, not even when Charles said, "Erik?" in a tone of confusion that made Erik simultaneously want to stroke his hair sweetly and also fuck him roughly over the coffee table. 

"Don't." The bathroom was close enough, and Erik stalked towards it, slamming the door and slumping down immediately against it. On the other side, Charles was rapping on the door, but Erik slammed the bolt home and pressed his hands to his face, struggling to breathe. 

Cold water. He grappled for the tap without getting up, splashed a fair quantity on his face, but it didn't seem to be having any effect. His hand strayed between his legs despite himself, palming the bulge, and on the other side of the door Charles was coaxing him now, pleading. 

"Erik, please. Erik, come out of there. It's okay, honestly. I know you think I'm too young, but who's the one behaving like a child?" 

Erik took a deep, shuddering breath. God, what the fuck was wrong with him that even like this, slumped shame-faced and panicking on his bathroom floor, Charles's voice still rolled over him like honey, making him want to unzip his jeans and fist himself right there. He groaned, a mixture of arousal and despair, pressing down with the heel of his hand just for an edge of pressure. 

"Go away, Charles." He hadn't known until he opened his mouth how his voice sounded, ragged and low, but he heard the catch in Charles's breath, the shift in timbre. 

"God, Erik, if you're going to just sit there and wank, you might as well let me do it for you." 

_Shit_. Erik closed his eyes, squeezed himself, ran his thumb over the zipper of his jeans just for the sensation of the metal against his skin. This had to stop, it had to, but it was so fucking difficult when Charles wouldn't _shut up_." 

"Fuck, let me _see_ you, at least, if this is all I'm going to get. I've been getting myself off thinking about your dick since that day you came in in your boxers, Erik, I just want to touch you, I want --" 

Charles broke off, but it was too late, now he'd fucking done it. Erik was so hard that his zipper practically unzipped itself when he bit his lip and popped the button, the fat swell of his dick shoving the teeth apart even before Erik got his hand in, wrapped his fingers around himself. He could hear Charles breathing, fancied he could feel the weight of him against the other side of the door, even though he knew that was ridiculous. Normally, Erik liked to go slow with himself, wallow in the moment, but there was no way he could do anything now but start jacking furiously like a fratboy, his fist sliding easy through a slick mess of precome. Charles on top of him, Charles's round arse finally pressed against him, God, Erik wanted to pin Charles down and fuck him like that, he couldn't help it, Charles had melted his brain and conscience entirely. 

When it was over and he managed to destroy the shameful evidence of his actions, he emerged from the bathroom. As expected, Charles was waiting for him right outside with his arms crossed over his chest and cheeks flushed.

“Better?” he asked. Erik wasn’t sure whether the playful confidence had always been there or if it was merely a product of their most recent activities.

Erik made a face. “I’m not sure if you can call it that.”

“I’d say it’s definitely better.”

Slowly, carefully, Charles stepped closer and placed his hands upon Erik’s waist. His touch was light, as though he was afraid that Erik would still push him away -- which might have been a possibility but they both knew it was too late for that.

“Have you always been so sure of yourself?”

“Mostly. I usually get what I want. Even though I didn’t get to see you wanking yourself off,” he added with what Erik assumed was supposed to be a smirk but nonetheless came across as an awkward attempt at seductive flirting. Against his better judgement, he found it more than endearing, wanted to pull the boy into an embrace and kiss him until his brain melted out of his ears. Charles tended to have that effect on him. 

Slowly, Erik ran a hand over his face and sighed. Charles's fingers were warm against him, and Erik let them stay, trying to calm himself. Charles was certainly self-assured. It was comforting, in a way; Charles was old enough to consent according to the state, after all, and listening to his matter-of-fact voice made Erik less anxious about having pressured him into anything. 

As if hearing Erik's thoughts, Charles said softly, "I'm not a child, Erik." The fingers on Erik's waist tightened, and the tone of his voice was soothing, as if Erik were the uncertain virgin needing reassurance. "I'm inexperienced, but I'm not stupid. I know my mind." 

At last, Erik let himself reach out and take hold of Charles, and the boy melted into him immediately. Like this, with the urgency and tension of earlier gone out of everything, it was nice to hold Charles, learning the ways they fitted together, how Erik's chin rested so perfectly on the top of Charles's head. His hair was soft, and Erik inhaled the warm scent of his shampoo for a moment before he spoke. 

"I know you're not stupid. And I certainly know you're bossy." 

Charles huffed a laugh against Erik's neck. "Cheeky." 

"It's true," Erik protested weakly. He pressed a kiss to the crown of Charles's head, letting himself indulge in the whim. "But I'm so very much older than you, Charles." 

Charles shrugged, and pulled away slightly so he could meet Erik's eyes. "I like a man with experience." He smiled, almost but not quite a smirk. "Better than two people fumbling around knowing nothing, anyway." Hesitantly, Charles leaned up, as if unsure of his welcome, and Erik took pity on him, kissed him softly on the mouth. 

"People would think I'm a disgusting old man if they found out." 

"So don't tell them," Charles said, and casually went on, "Or at least please, please don't start thinking about that before I've at least got to see you naked." 

“Charles…”

“I said _don’t_.” He pressed another light kiss to the corner of Erik’s mouth. “Now, how about some pizza? I’m starving.” Then, when he moved, he grimaced. “But first I must ask you to lend me a pair of boxers.”


	7. Chapter 7

Three weeks and Charles was still -- as he saw it -- technically a virgin. Technically, because Erik hadn’t made any advances in -- well, in _that_ direction yet. Charles had begun to wonder whether or not Erik intended to take his _technical virginity_ at all. He knew theoretically that not all gay men actually engaged in penetrative sex, knew it didn't make him any less of an adult not to have done that, but it wasn't even just that particular goal that still seemed so far away. Anything that might be called _conclusive_ , any kind of penetration, Erik seemed leery of, and the fact that Charles had been angling for that and getting only a vibe that Erik didn't think Charles could take it was a little frustrating. 

It wasn’t as though being with the older man was a terrible experience, as it was. Quite the contrary: it was exciting, and if Charles was being honest with himself, he could admit at least that it was even slightly kinky in a way where a thirty-year-age difference could sometimes lead to strange dynamics outside and inside the bedroom. It was obvious that Erik was more experienced in every sense of the word, and even though it every once in a while tended to intimidate Charles, he soaked up Erik’s knowledge and confidence like a sponge. He also had a feeling that he could teach Erik a thing or two about how to enjoy life without doing too much brooding. Erik liked to smile wryly at him each time he said that Charles’s youthfulness was to blame for that. Charles tended to shut him up with a groan and a kiss as he hated being reminded of how young Erik thought he was.

What kept Charles from losing his patience altogether was the fact that, by some inexplicable miracle, Erik seemed to be just as captivated by Charles as Charles was by him. A man his age, it made no sense that he should be just as overcome by sloppy fumbled touches and urgent kisses as Charles was, but -- well. Erik wasn't a good enough actor to lie with his whole body. 

Early on, Charles figured out that Erik's main weakness was Charles's mouth, his face. The first time Charles had finally got a hand inside Erik's jeans, it had been after such a moment of distraction, Charles holding Erik's eyes as he begged for it, "Erik, please let me touch you. I want it, let me..." 

And Erik had succumbed with a groan, letting Charles wrap his hand carefully around that longed-for heat. It was everything Charles had imagined, the weight of Erik in his palm, the sheer fucking size of him flooding Charles's mouth with saliva. He made a wondering sound, helpless, and then his eyes flickered up to Erik and Erik was biting his lip, watching Charles as if he'd never seen anything more arousing than Charles's sudden uncertainty. Charles wet his lips, unconsciously, but his breath caught when Erik's eyes darkened in response. Carefully, he squeezed Erik's shaft, drew his thumb up to brush over the head. Erik was cut, unlike himself, and Charles found himself fascinated by the difference, the bared slit glistening in the crown. He rubbed over it slowly, and again, and again, until Erik full - on moaned and bucked his hips into Charles's hand. 

"Please..." His fingers closed around Charles's wrist, guided his hand down to stroke Erik fully, and Erik's face then -- Charles knew he had him captive. Leaning up, he caught Erik's mouth with his own, began to jack him more firmly, and when Erik came with a cry, Charles felt like a god. 

He was less shy now, more aware of where Erik liked to be touched, which sounds he made when they curled naked against each other and panted into each other's mouths while they did this. And it was good, better than good; Erik was long and lean and gorgeous and his perfect hands and perfect cock were greater prizes than Charles had ever dreamed of winning. It was just that he couldn't quite seem to work out how to get more. 

More, at the moment -- the fantasy of more in Charles's wet dreams -- was a simple enough request. Erik smelled so good, salty and slick in Charles's hand, and the more they did this, the more Charles dreamed of just going down on his knees for him, curling his tongue around Erik's dick, tasting him. Feeling the weight of him in his throat, how it might be to be fucked like that. It was just that, whenever Charles showed any sign of moving in that direction, Erik would grip him fiercely, kiss him hard, anything to keep him in place. Once, Erik had gathered Charles close in one arm and wrapped his own fist around both of them, pressed their hot skin together until they came almost simultaneously, and that had been good enough to make Charles forget what he'd really wanted. 

Most of the time, though, he knew. Erik was holding back on him still, going easy on him, and Charles was sick of it.

Perhaps, if Erik had allowed them to deepen their physical relationship, Charles would have been less annoyed by his sister’s teasing. Raven wasn’t stupid, and much to his chagrin, she took a great delight in pointing out any dark spots Erik had carelessly left on Charles’s neck. He did like it, loved it even when Erik forgot about all his qualms, worries and self-hatred for five minutes and selfishly marked Charles as _his_. Still. Along with those love bites came also taunting. It was only a small comfort that their mother didn’t seem to notice whenever Raven was going on about his _hot college boyfriend_. Not that she would have cared much who Charles was dating but at least she didn’t feel inspired to ask him about Hot College Boyfriend to begin with.

“When am I going to meet him?” Raven asked for what must have been the twentieth time since he had come home from school.

With a grunt of annoyance, he turned around to face her, already preparing himself for another witty quip, ready to tell her to fuck off when suddenly his ringtone startled them both into silence.

“Oh. _Oh._ ” Raven clapped her hands in delight. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

“Shut up,” Charles frowned at her as he reached for his phone with red cheeks. Well, at least she was right.

Charles wasn't used to this many actual phone conversations. He and Raven -- indeed, he and basically everyone he knew -- tended just to send text messages. Usually, it struck him as oddly charming, this reminder that Erik was of another generation, but now as he answered his phone, he couldn't help but wish Erik would just get the hell over it and just send texts instead. 

"Hello?" 

His voice was stiff, he could tell. He couldn't seem to do much about it, either, not with Raven grinning at him and waving her hands in delight. On the other end of the phone, Erik had clearly picked up on the awkwardness.

"Charles -- is this a bad time?" 

"Ummm," said Charles, eloquently. 

Erik sighed. "I'm going to take that as a yes. Is someone there with you?" 

Raven's stage whisper really needed work. "LET ME TALK TO HIM," she hissed, somehow more loudly than if she'd just spoken in a normal voice. "HI, CHARLES'S BOYFRIEND!" 

Charles wrinkled his brows and turned his back, as if that would help. "Um, my sister is here and she's being -- _stop_ it, Raven -- she's being nosy." 

Erik laughed softly, and the unconcern in the sound of it made something uncoil in Charles's chest. " _Is_ she, now. Well, tell her I said hello. Might you be available this evening to pop over to mine? I thought we could have Chinese." 

Forgetting about Raven for the moment, Charles bit his lip on a grin. "Are you going to make it worth my while?" 

Erik snorted. "Demanding, aren't you?" 

There was nothing of what Charles wanted to say that could be said in front of Raven. Stuff like _well, I like your cock and I want more of it_. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, still grinning, "You like it. How does six-thirty sound?" 

"Sounds good," Erik said, and Charles could hear in his voice that he was grinning too. "See you later, then." 

"Bye," Charles said, a little hesitant, and waited for Erik to hang up. He was still staring dazedly at the phone when Raven swatted him in the arm and jerked him out of his reverie. 

"You ass, I wanted to talk to him!" 

"Well, you can forget about that, because you're not gonna!" Charles put the phone defiantly back into his pocket, and Raven rolled her eyes. 

"Honestly, Charles, I'm gonna start thinking he must be butt-ugly or something and you're ashamed to let me see." 

Jesus Christ, as if. Charles choked on a laugh. "He is _not_." 

"Well, then?" Raven put her hands on her hips. "When can I meet him?" 

"Soon enough," Charles said, without really meaning it. 

It wasn't until later that evening that he realised quite how prophetic his words had been.

*

He arrived as promised at 6:30 PM, with clean clothes and the lovely fresh smell of his shower gel lingering on his skin. Erik didn’t like it when Charles was late, and Charles preferred to be nicely groomed when he was with him, as he feared that he would otherwise give off subtle yet nasty teenager waves that would eventually scare Erik off. He couldn’t risk that, could he? After all, Erik seemed to forget more and more often about their age difference and Charles didn’t want to remind him of it.

He didn’t have to wait long for Erik to answer the door; it seemed as though he had already been waiting behind it as it opened just a few heartbeats after Charles’s knock, and when he opened it, Charles found himself mirroring the other man’s broad smile.

“Am I late?” It was an effort of will to stop himself from throwing himself at Erik and pressing a kiss to his face. That was probably still where the biggest difference lay between them -- Charles’s joyful exuberance, especially when it came to showing his affection for Erik.

“Not at all. Come in.”

Erik’s flat already smelled delicious. Charles made a beeline for the kitchen while Erik grumbled something behind him about at least taking his shoes and jacket off first, but Charles ignored him with a grin.

“I’ve ordered the usual,” Erik said as Charles surveyed the plates with food already carefully arranged on them. “I hope that was fine with you?”

“Of course,” Charles nodded and let Erik take his jacket off.

Then, when he least expected it, Erik pressed a kiss to Charles’s neck, just right below his earlobe, and murmured, “I missed you, you know.”

Charles's breath stopped in his throat. Erik's touch had always been electric, lighting him up from the inside, and this, so unexpected, sent a literal shiver down Charles's spine. All that effort he'd put into restraining himself, and now Erik had him half-hard with a touch before they'd even sat down to dinner. 

Charles swallowed hard and forced his muscles to obey him again, leaning back tentatively against Erik's chest. When he half-turned, he could see Erik up close, the finely-cut profile and the incredible eyes that had caught Charles's attention in the first place, so many months ago. 

"I missed you too," he managed, his voice a little hoarse. 

"I thought as much," Erik said, the corner of his mouth quirking. At first, Charles thought he was about to pull away, but the next second, Erik was leaning in again, nuzzling at the bolt of Charles's jaw, the tendon in his neck. "But I'm glad to hear it." 

It was more than Charles could manage not to close his eyes, and when Erik's arm encircled his waist, his mouth opening damp and warm against the curve of Charles's throat, he whimpered embarrassingly in his throat, turned his face towards Erik. All thoughts of food gone, he made to shift in Erik's grip, leaning up for a kiss, his whole body heating with Erik's proximity, the promise of him. 

"Anyway," Erik said, letting go just before Charles's mouth could catch his, "we shouldn't let the food get cold." 

Charles could have groaned aloud with frustration, and some of his bemusement must have shown on his face, because Erik laughed openly as he pulled out a chair for Charles to sit. 

"Now now, Charles. Learn a little patience. We've got all the time in the world. Now -- food." 

"You're an asshole," Charles muttered. His cheeks were so flushed he could feel the heat of them, but he sat down as instructed, although he did permit himself a well-aimed kick to Erik's ankle when the other man had taken his own seat. 

"I'm teaching you to wait," Erik said smoothly, reaching for his fork. "You'll thank me for it later." Then he winked, and any hope Charles had of his hard-on disappearing while he was eating flew out of the window. 

The teasing carried on all the way through dinner. At first, Charles thought the occasional nudges of Erik's foot against his were accidental, but the third time he did it, Charles looked up sharply and caught the slow smirk on Erik's face. It wasn't like Erik to be like this, to be playful, for want of a better word, and part of Charles felt oddly hopeful about it. The part of Charles, that is, that wasn't currently squirming in his seat and wishing Erik would stop talking about college-level algebra so Charles could climb into his lap already. 

How Erik managed to keep a straight face was beyond Charles. 

"I can hardly imagine you," Charles said, smiling, "at college." 

Erik looked momentarily offended. "What, you think I've always been an old man?" 

"You're not _old_. Just...you look so competent and in charge of everything, I can't picture you being that young." 

"Maybe I should show you a photograph, then, just to prove I didn't spring fully-formed from a pod." Erik set his fork down, and Charles felt a swirl of heat in his stomach as Erik pushed his chair back. "I have some, in my bedroom, I think?" 

Charles barely restrained himself from punching the air in joy. However, just as he got up from the table, his phone began ringing. Of course. 

Charles spared a glance at the screen, mostly expecting it to be some blocked number or a call centre or something else he could reject out of hand. When he saw Raven's name lit up on the screen, he hesitated. Raven knew where he was, that he was, effectively, on a date. She wouldn't call him to interrupt that. Text him, perhaps, but if Raven was _calling_ him -- 

"I have to take this," he told Erik, and pressed 'accept'. 

"Raven?" 

"Charles --" She was crying, her voice thick with panic, and the next words out of her mouth were so choked that it took a few seconds before Charles was sure he'd heard right. "Charles, you have to -- please, I don't know what to -- I think Sharon's dead." 

Charles blinked. Held his breath. Released it slowly.

“Are you sure?” It was odd how calm his voice was despite the news. It was unsettling but Charles stayed collected until he finished the phone call, having promised his sister that he’d be back as soon as possible. And then, when he hung up and finally grew aware of the concerned look Erik was giving him, he felt something bubble up inside of him. The first giggle escaped him, followed by another and before he knew it, he was laughing hysterically, nearly hyperventilating. Erik had come around quickly to hold him in a tight embrace while he stroked his hair and made gentle hushing sounds.

“Charles, what's happened?”

*

As Erik drove him back home, Charles could only stare out of the window in his numb state. He watched the raindrops on the glass run down, followed their movements while the radio played some old song which had been a hit long before Charles was born and when Erik had been only a teenager himself.

Erik drove quickly but safely and for a while, Charles allowed himself to close his eyes. He needed to brace himself, after all, for what was about to come. When they arrived, he could already see the ambulance outside his home. He and Erik shared a concerned look, and not for one second did either of them think it was a better idea if Erik just dropped Charles at the door and drove off. Things could always be explained later. At this point, Charles needed Erik by his side. 

Inside the house, everything was chaos. The first thing Charles saw was the team of paramedics gathered around -- something -- on the sofa; a few feet away, Raven stood trembling with both hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide. She wasn't worried for Sharon, exactly; Charles knew that. There had been no love lost between the two of them. But they were young, and Sharon, even in her alcoholic haze, had represented at least an illusion of security. Now -- and the thought made Charles's stomach sink, too -- now they were effectively alone in the world. 

He moved to her without thinking, and she jumped as if she hadn't even noticed their arrival. 

"What have they said?" Charles asked, pulling her into his arms. Raven shook her head, clinging to him instinctively. She didn't seem to even register the figure of Erik a few steps behind. 

"They tried to revive her, but…" She broke off. "I'm pretty sure they're about to call it." 

As if in confirmation, one of the paramedics stood and addressed Charles, his voice kind but firm. "Are you Charles? Her son?" 

"Yes," Charles said tightly, fearing the worst and not even quite knowing what 'the worst' would be. 

"I'm sorry for your loss," said the paramedic softly. "We'll have to take her to the hospital for a doctor to call time of death, but there's no hope, I'm afraid. Is there anyone you and your sister can be with, anyone I can call?" 

"I'll stay." 

Erik's voice surprised Charles and Raven both, but the paramedic seemed satisfied. He nodded, tipped his head deferentially. 

"Okay then. We'll take her in, and someone will be in touch with you in the morning about what has to happen next." 

_What has to happen next_. Charles's legs felt suddenly weak. Nothing was simple in this world, not even dying. Sharon had died, and Charles now had more things to arrange than he'd had before when she'd just been dying by inches on the settee with a glass of wine. 

But Erik, somehow, seemed to sense what Charles was thinking. He stepped silently closer, wrapped an arm around Charles's shoulder and squeezed. "It will be fine, Charles. I'm here. I'll help you."


	8. Chapter 8

In hindsight, Erik realised, it had been a both good and terrible idea to stay with Charles, and not to just drive him home and then go elsewhere. The boy was clearly in need of someone who could handle such a devastating situation -- even if he didn’t particularly show it, Erik knew him well enough by now to recognise the signs -- and while Charles had retreated to be with his sister and comfort her, Erik handled everything with the ambulance who took Sharon’s body to the hospital to be certified, and thereafter to the mortuary until a funeral could be arranged.

When they were gone, without another glance from the Xavier siblings, Erik released a deep breath and went to find Charles and his sister. He didn’t spot them immediately; their hushed whisper was the first thing that led him to them.

“What are we going to do now?” Raven’s quiet voice piped up with a slight tremble in it. Charles sounded just tired as he replied.

“I don’t know, darling. It’s not as if we had any relatives left…”

“Also, _who is that man_ , Charles? What’s he got to do with Sharon?”

Erik drew in a sharp breath through his teeth. This -- well. Erik didn't think now was quite the time for this conversation to be had, but then, what else had he expected? Charles needed someone -- hell, the Xavier siblings both needed someone, and that thought made him feel simultaneously vindicated in staying and disgusted with himself all the more, because they were _so young_ , and here he was as their Appropriate Adult while simultaneously taking advantage of Charles. 

Shit. He was an awful person. Raven was bound to hate him, whatever Charles said. Still, he held his breath in anticipation of whatever that might be. 

Charles, naturally, hesitated, but when the words came out, his voice was strong enough. "Well, he's nothing to do with Sharon, but he's something to do with me." 

Raven looked up at him in confusion. "I figured that, Charles, but -- what, did your boyfriend's dad drive you over here?" 

Erik cringed internally, and saw the look reflected on Charles's face. Clearing his throat, he decided to put Charles out of his misery and walked over, cupping a protective hand around Charles's elbow. "I've sorted out what I could. How are you two holding up?" 

It was up to Charles, now, how he wanted to play this. After all, he knew his sister better than Erik did. 

Beside him, Charles smiled, his eyes a little wet and his face looking drawn and strained, immediately ten years older. It wasn't the comfort to Erik that it might have been. 

"All right, thanks to you. Raven, this is my friend, Erik. He's been -- helping me with my college applications and teaching me to beat everybody at chess. Erik, this is my sister, Raven." 

Raven’s eyes flickered up to him, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach, he realised that she was scrutinising him, weighing whether or not she could trust him. And, quite possibly, how on earth he and Charles could have become friends.

“Hiya,” she eventually said, unsmiling. “Thanks for helping us, I guess.”

Erik shrugged. “It’s all right. I wish I’d had someone to help me when I lost my own mother, so I’m glad I could help.”

Raven acknowledged this with a nod before she turned her head away and rested it against Charles’s shoulder. Charles gave Erik a weak smile, and Erik returned it with a quick, gentle pat to the top of his head.

“Do you want me to leave? I’d understand it if you want some time alone…”

“Maybe it’s best, yes. I think we… we need some time to process this.”

“Of course. But if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call me.”

“Thanks, Erik.”

The urge to press a kiss to Charles’s mouth was almost unbearable. Before he could give in to it, and make the situation even worse than it already was, he gathered his jacket and readied himself to go. As he said his goodbye to Raven, Charles untangled himself from his sister and stood up.

“Let me walk you to your car, yeah?”

“Fine by me.” Charles led the way out of the room, and with a hesitant tight smile, Erik waved at Raven before he followed the boy. Once they were outside, Erik immediately closed the door behind them.

“Do you think she suspects anything?”

Charles pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger and sighed. "What? Oh." He looked distracted, and Erik could have kicked himself for worrying about something like this after what had just happened to the Xavier siblings, but he didn't want to have made a bad situation worse. 

"I only wanted to help you," Erik interrupted, before Charles could finish his thought, and Charles took his hand at once, blue eyes meeting Erik's. 

"I know," he said earnestly, "and believe me, I'm glad you were there. I don't know what Raven thinks. If she believes you and I are just friends, she still thinks it's weird that I have a friend old enough to be my dad, I can tell you that much." 

Erik winced. "Maybe I should stay away for a while." 

"No!" The rejoinder came at once, almost alarmed. "No, Erik, I -- Raven's got more important things to worry about right now than what you are to me, and even if it does make her ask questions, I can put her off. We can worry about that stuff later; I need…" Charles hesitated. "I need your support." 

The look on Charles's face was enough to melt whatever resolve Erik had been building. He sighed. "Of course you do. And you have it." Carefully, he leaned down and brushed a kiss to Charles's mouth. "Call me if you need me. I know about more than just student support applications, you know." 

"I know," Charles said softly. "Thanks, Erik."

Erik waited until the door had closed behind Charles's retreating back before he gathered himself to go and get into his car, wondering how their evening could have swung so quickly from Chinese to paramedics. 

At any rate: Charles really was the man of the family now. Not that it brought Erik much comfort. 

*

“Papa?”

“Hm?”

“Are you all right? You sound… a bit down today.”

“Oh… Yeah, I’m -- I’m okay, Liebling. Last night was a bit rough, though.”

As he heard his daughter taking in a sharp breath, it wasn’t difficult at all to picture the face Anya was probably making at this very moment.

“If you need me to come back because you’re lonely, and slowly killing yourself with nights out and semi-legal substances…”

“What? _No_! No. Why would you even _think_ of that?” Erik rubbed his face. “It’s just that… a friend of mine had lost a relative yesterday and I was there for moral support.”

“You? Support?”

“So to speak. And don’t make it sound as if I was never there for anyone, junges Fräulein.”

“Well.”

“ _Anya_...”

“I’m joking, I’m joking.” He could hear her giggle bubbling up at the other end of the line; Erik found himself smiling in response despite himself. She sounded so much like her mother sometimes. “Even though it’s probably not the right time for stupid jokes, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Do I know this friend, then?”

Erik should have known that this was coming. Of course his daughter was going to ask the question he had hoped she’d forget about. (She was his child after all, completely taking after him.) Not because she didn’t know Charles, and not because she wasn’t aware of the boy’s friendship with her father. But how to explain that he, Erik Lehnsherr, a 47-year-old man in a possible midlife crisis, had been around an almost 18-year-old yesterday evening when his mother had died? How to explain that without sounding too dubious?

Instead of going for the truth, Erik decided to do what was best and opted for the classic of all answers: “Nah.”

"Mmm." Anya didn't sound suspicious, particularly. Probably, Erik thought, she assumed that if this friend's mother had just died, it was probably someone Erik's age, parents collecting their pensions and dying off of natural causes. Then she said, "Is it a -- special friend?" 

The upward lilt to her voice was unmistakable, and Erik was conscious of his own embarrassed smile as he pressed a hand to his face. "Are you asking me if I'm dating?" 

He could almost hear her shrug. "You know I worry about you, out there on your own. Mum's had boyfriends, though how she's found the time with the twins to look after, I don't know." 

Erik hesitated. Charles was certainly a special friend, in any sense of the term. Anya sounded as if she'd like to hear the truth, and Erik was sick of lying. "Well. Maybe. But it's early days, it might not go anywhere." 

"Hmm." This time, Anya's tone was distinctly suspicious. "You say that, but I know you, Papa. It takes a lot for you to want to spend enough time around someone to start considering them your _special friend_. I expect updates on this situation." 

"All right, all right." That was definitely a Magda tone of voice. "But don't expect much; he's got enough on his plate at the moment with the situation with his mother." 

A tiny pause, and then Anya said, "He, is it?" and Erik could have kicked himself. Not that he'd betrayed himself; he'd already worked out long ago that Anya had figured him out on that score, but still, it was more than he'd meant to give away. 

Erik shrugged, then remembered Anya couldn't see and said, "Like you're surprised." 

Anya laughed. "Papa, I'm just surprised you're willingly spending your time in company with any other human being, but -- good surprised." He could hear her smile. "I hope he gets through this okay." 

"Me too," Erik said, smiling back at her. God, if nothing else, he'd made good kids. "Me too." 

It was late for Anya in Germany, well past midnight, and Erik felt guilty for keeping his daughter up for so long just so she could keep his mind off how Charles might have been doing right now. He wished her a goodnight, Anya replied with a yawn. And just as he was about to press the button to disconnect their call, he heard her voice faintly piping up through the speaker: “Papa? _Papa..?_ I forgot to ask something. Don’t hang up.”

“What? What did you say?”

“I said, I forgot to ask you something.” she began and took a deep breath.

Erik waited. Clearly, his daughter had some qualms about asking him straight away -- something that didn’t seem like her usual self. She came after him, and both were notorious for their bluntness. He tried not to let his impatience show, but he longed for a shower and his bed. “Well? What is it?”

“Do you happen to know someone called, uhm… Raven? Is that even a name?”

“I…” Erik could have sworn that his heart had dropped at the speed of light into his stomach. Swallowing dryly, he asked, “I do, yes. Why?”

“Oh. Just asking. Sleep tight, Papa.”

Erik continued to stare at the phone in his hand long after Anya had hung up.

*

_Earlier that day_

Raven Xavier was many things, but an idiot was not one of them. Charles might consider himself the brains of the operation, but as far as she was concerned, there was a difference between intelligence and street-savvy, and while Charles may have possessed a lot of the former, he was slightly lacking in the latter. 

The funeral had all been sorted; the Xavier fortune, of course, went to Charles, so they were safe in their house, at least. There still remained a court process to establish Charles's suitability, at nearly-eighteen, to look after himself and his sister, but the family lawyer had said this was unlikely to be a problem; Charles was so close to eighteen that finding a 'guardian' in the interim would be more trouble than the court wanted. And the house, as far as Raven was concerned, felt barely any different for the lack of Sharon, except that it smelled slightly less of alcohol. 

So, life went on. It seemed incredible, at first, that it could; but as Raven got over the dull haze of shock that had hit her when she found Sharon like that, she found herself going back and back over that night, when Charles had arrived home with -- with that man. With Erik Lehnsherr. He'd been _on a date_ , or so Raven had thought, and then her brother had shown up with a man old enough to be his father, and no explanation. It was clear enough that they were close. As the man had left, Raven had peered out of the window, caught the moment when Erik pulled back from Charles and smiled, as if withdrawing from a hug -- or a kiss. 

No, she had to be wrong about that. It didn't make sense. She had told herself at the time that she must have been misinterpreting things. Charles was in shock: maybe Erik was a counsellor or something, trying to comfort him the way he knew how. Charles, her sweet little innocent brother Charles, who'd never been in a relationship in his life, wasn't exactly about to start with a forty-something man. _Surely_. 

And yet, the more Raven thought about it, the more she went over and over it in her mind, the more it niggled at her. Forty-something men weren't just _friends_ with teenagers. Who the fuck was this guy, and why was Charles so evasive about him? The first time she'd mentioned him, trying to be casual, Charles had shut it down and left the room. After that, Raven didn't want to push, in case it made him clam up more, but that didn't mean she didn't want to _know_. But if she was going to confront Charles with anything as -- dramatic -- as the suggestion that he was somehow weirdly involved with this older guy, she'd need to try and establish if there was anything to the ridiculous idea first. 

Charles had taken to Facebook late, mostly due to Raven's prodding. He didn't use it much, she knew, but a quick perusal of his Facebook wall...yes. A name caught her eye and she scrolled rapidly down. Anya Lehnsherr, enquiring as to how Charles's university applications were going, and whether he had made a decision yet. A pretty girl, smiling, in the profile pic, but Raven knew Charles, and didn't think he had much use for pretty girls these days. Anya's profile was locked, but her profile pictures were open, and as Raven clicked back through them, it didn't take long before she found herself staring at a familiar face, mouth open in confusion. 

Erik Lehnsherr. Definitely, that was the man who'd brought Charles home, all cheekbones and rawboned good looks, grinning at the camera with his arm around Anya. Around a girl who surely must be his daughter. 

Raven's head was a whirl. Was Charles just hanging out with a friend's dad and was embarrassed to tell Raven, was that it? It didn't add up, especially not when she factored in the way they'd angled towards each other, bodies too close together. The amount this Erik person seemed to _care_. 

It didn't take long before she'd opened a message box and started composing her question. If anyone knew where the centre of this tangle was, it would be this Anya person. Or at least, so Raven hoped. 

_Hey, I know you don’t technically know me, but can I ask you nonetheless why your father likes to hang out with teenage boys like a paedophile creeper?_

She stared at the message for a good ten seconds, then begrudgingly admitted that this was probably not the best way to get information from a person she didn’t even know. While she growled at her screen in annoyance as she impatiently deleted each letter by assaulting her keyboard, she racked her brain for something intelligent to say. Charles would surely not have had any problems with this; he was the one who apparently made friends with strangers three times his age. Hell, she wasn’t even sure if this Anya person was capable of speaking English; all comments on her profile photos were written in German. Or at least it looked like it. Raven wasn’t certain.

“ _Come on…_ ” she sighed to herself and ruffled her hair, frustrated.

And then, perhaps it was divine inspiration or the fact that she heard Charles’s giggle (his _giggle_ ) from the living room while he was talking to someone on the phone, she sat up straight, cracked her knuckles and began to compose a message.

_Hi Anya, I hope this doesn’t come off as weird but I’m Charles’s sister. (The last name indicates as much, eh?)_

_I wanted to ask if you’re related to Erik?_

There. That was all she could do for now. Sighing, she closed her laptop. It was of course only a matter of time until Anya would read her message but the question was if she was going to reply to it at all. And in order to keep herself entertained until she’d check her messages again, Raven dutifully tidied up her room (which she had put off long before Sharon had died), and went to annoy Charles about her homework when she thought that he had been on the phone long enough.

Afternoon turned into evening. Still no message from Anya. She hadn’t even _read_ it yet. The later it got the more annoyed Raven became. Perhaps sleep would help; trying to turn it off and on again, and all that. After she had ready for bed, she wished Charles a good night and he smiled at her, phone still glued to his hand. Christ.

To be frank, Raven had almost given up her hopes that she’d get a reply that day. But checking her Facebook account one more time couldn’t hurt. The page loaded and then it happened -- her heart skipped a beat as she noticed the little red bubble at the corner of the page, telling her that she’d received a new message.

Her throat seemed to close up as she clicked. Stupid; it wasn't as if she'd asked anything particularly prying in the original comment. She'd be lucky if she got a 'yes, why?' back, or even a 'yes' at all. Anya was probably wondering why on earth she'd had a message from a stranger on Facebook. 

With a sigh, Raven made herself look at the message. 

_Hi Raven,_ it said (and Raven was pleased to note it was in very good English, so no problems there) _I don't think I knew Charles had a sister, but it's nice to find out! Hello. And yes, Erik is my dad. Why?_

Fuck. Raven sat back in her chair, something coursing through her that might have been relief or frustration and felt a lot like both mixed together. This told her something and nothing. But maybe -- Anya had only sent this message moments ago -- maybe Anya was still online? Quickly, she typed back: 

_Do you know how they know each other? I just wondered why a man your dad's age would want to hang out with Charles._ Hesitating, she added, to soften the implication, _(Who is a total loser, by the way. ;) )_

The little bubbles came up almost immediately to indicate that Anya was replying, and Raven pressed her hands to her face, waiting. 

_Not sure, really. Dad said he sees him on his way to work, I think they met on the train. Oh and he delivered our pizza once…_

Raven rolled her eyes. Of course, the fucking pizza boy cliche. This was ridiculous. 

_Don't take this the wrong way, but...they've been hanging out together, I think. Has he mentioned it?_

This time, there was a long pause. Raven had almost given up and shut the computer when the reply came. 

_No. Not by name, anyway…_

The ellipses were a trail Raven didn't really want to follow, but she could tell Anya was disconcerted on the other end of the line, too. 

_But?_ Raven typed.

Another pause. Then: _So sorry if this is out of the blue (and sorry if it's true, too) but your mum hasn't passed away recently, has she?_

At that, Raven's chest seized up. Fuck. Anya _did_ know something and she didn't want to know it any more than Raven did, but she had to type: _Yes...so?_

A long pause, and then -- Raven slammed her palm flat on the desk in frustration -- 

_Anya Lehnsherr is offline_. 

*

The last thing Erik expected was a second conversation with his eldest daughter in the space of a few hours, especially at this time of night. When he picked up the phone, it flashed into his mind that possibly there was something wrong; of course he wasn't about to reject the call, late as it was. Groggily, he managed, "Hello?" 

Anya's voice, when it came, wasn't anxious, or upset, but tight, strident in a way Erik had never heard it. "This guy you're seeing, whose mother has just died." 

Erik blinked. Something turned over in his stomach, and he pulled himself up slowly, feeling a sense of doom growing in his stomach. "Yes…?" 

"Please tell me. _Please_ , Papa, reassure me it isn't Charles Xavier."


	9. Chapter 9

Charles was shaking. Properly shaking with no control over it. He had never experienced this before, not even when his mother had died. But then, he hadn’t been _this angry_ before. Not ever.

With his phone tightly clenched in his fist, he marched down the corridor to his sister’s room. Usually, he’d knock before entering since Raven was a tad sensitive about her privacy (oh, the irony!), but things had changed and Charles couldn’t be _arsed_ with any sort of etiquette or pleasantries. He shoved the door open and Raven whirled around on her chair.

“Charles!”

“What the fuck have you done, Raven?!”

She frowned at him as though he was talking gibberish. “Excuse me?”

“This!” He waved his phone in front of her. “Why can’t you just leave my privacy be, for fuck’s sake?”

“Charles, listen, I’m not sure what happened but…”

“Erik happened! He just called me, and we had a jolly good chat about you!”

"Oh, Erik _happened_ , is that what we're calling it now?" She was out of her chair now, and Charles was uncomfortably reminded that she'd got taller than him somewhere along the way, and with that look on her face, made a rather imposing figure. "Erik just _happened_ to be the kind of weird pervy older guy who thinks hanging out with teenagers is fine?" 

"Raven, it's not _like_ that," Charles snapped. "You don't know what you're talking about. Why do you have to go around meddling in things you know nothing about?" 

"Charles, for crying out loud, there's one of us that knows nothing about life and it sure as hell isn't me." She crossed her arms. "I was worried about you, okay?" 

Charles pressed his hands to his face. This could not be happening. "And you couldn't have just...asked me, instead of insinuating things to his daughter on Facebook, on _my_ Facebook, by the way? You're not a Private Eye, Raven!" 

Raven shrugged, and pointedly sat down again. "I'm an adult, she's an adult, we're entitled to have an adult conversation, it's a free country. Except -- oh!" Raven made an exaggerated face of sarcastic surprise. "Actually I'm _not_ an adult and neither are you, but he sure as hell is. He's taking advantage of you, Charles, how can't you see that?" 

Charles pressed his lips together tightly. "Would a man who's _taking advantage of me_ have just called me to say, for the second time, that he can't see me any more because his daughter knows because my _sister_ told her, and he doesn't want anyone to be upset?" 

Raven rolled her eyes. "He's just trying to be all gentlemanly so he can play the long game and get in your pants." 

"Too late," Charles snapped before he could think better of it. The look of stunned surprise on Raven's face was almost worth it. 

"You've got to be fucking kidding me. That's --" 

"It's not illegal," Charles cut her off, "before you say anything. He's not my teacher, he's not in charge of me, he's just some guy and I'm old enough to marry him if he asked me, so there's actually nothing you can do about it." Charles choked out a laugh. "Not that there's an _it_ now, thanks to you." 

"Oh, that's the thanks I get for trying to protect you?" Raven looked furious. "It's just -- it's _weird_ , Charles, can't you see that? Why would a man that age have any interest in you?" 

“Because we click, and it doesn’t matter that he’s older or that I’m younger. We _get_ each other. Unlike you and me, it seems,” he added and couldn’t even find it in himself to feel terrible about saying this despite the hurt look that flickered across his sister’s face.

“You can’t be serious. How the hell did you imagine your life was going to go with him, Charles? That you and he will grow old together? Oh, wait!” She laughed, mirthless. “He already _is_ old. In ten years’ time, he could probably be someone’s grandfather. But you’re too fucking stubborn to acknowledge that, aren’t you?”

At that, Charles stayed silent. Lord knew, he would have loved to spit out more vicious things, just for the sake of hurting Raven the way she hurt him but this wasn’t who he was or what he would let his feelings turn him into.

“I only want your best, Charles. I don’t want him to ruin your life, can’t you see? You’re my brother. I love you, you idiot.”

"I know," Charles said, after a moment, sighing. "Look, I know you didn't mean to hurt me. But -- it's not like he's proposed marriage, Raven. I'm young, I know that, but this is the first time I've ever felt this way. I want to at least see where it goes, you know?" He looked away. "I had to try so hard to talk him into it. It'll probably be impossible after this." 

For the first time, a flicker of sympathy crossed Raven's face. She sighed. "He's never tried to -- make you do anything you didn't want?" 

Charles snorted. "On the contrary. I bullied him relentlessly." 

Raven bit her lip. "I just...what do you guys even talk about? It seems like you'd have so little in common." 

That did make Charles laugh aloud. "Raven, darling. I may be seventeen, but I've been mentally thirty-seven since kindergarten. When I'm at school, I feel like I'm walking through my own special hell; I don't understand any of them. But then there's Erik. He doesn't have many friends, and God knows I don't, but there's something about him -- we have the same taste in books, in films, the same weird sense of humour, we make each other feel comfortable when really we're both quite on-edge people. It's just…" He shrugged. "Just us. I can't explain it. But it's definitely _not_ him being a pervy older man who does this with all the boys, I can tell you that." 

They regarded each other for a long moment; Raven looked guarded, even though he knew that the wheels had started turning in her head, and Charles began to notice how exhaustion was seeping into his system.

“I’m not going to apologise for what I did, Charles. Not because I don’t want you to be happy, but because I wanted to protect you.”

“I know,” he replied, then straightened his entire posture. “And while I don’t need a babysitter, I appreciate that you look out for me. But it’s none of your business.”

Wordlessly, Raven gave a short nod -- whether it was a sign that she agreed with him or merely acknowledgement that he'd spoken, he wasn’t sure -- and Charles turned to leave.

“I’m going out for a while. Don’t wait for me with dinner.”

“I don’t even have to ask where you’re going, do I?”

Charles walked out without giving a reply. Raven was a smart girl, she’d know the answer. And she was even more clever for not trying to stop him.

By now, he had ingrained the way to Erik’s flat in his heart. For once his little scooter had decided to cooperate as he drove down the street, and while Charles was grateful for that, he was anxious to finally see Erik face to face and to clear this whole mess up. And Erik had better comply, since Charles nearly caused two accidents as he chose to ignore the red traffic lights. They were more of a suggestion, anyway.

As he finally arrived and looked up at the building, it was the first time that he cursed all those stairs up to Erik’s. The lift had been broken since last weekend and still hadn’t been fixed. For a moment he pondered simply ringing Erik up and telling him to come down, but that was a suggestion Erik would certainly not follow, and then Charles would never see him again. And so, in his youthful spirit, he decided to sprint up the stairs, taking two at a time.

And when Erik opened the door two minutes after he had pressed the button for the doorbell, Charles was wheezing and heaving like a fish on land while he held up a finger, signalling to Erik that he’d need a moment to recover before he’d be able to form a coherent sentence.

Erik, as Charles had half-expected, didn't look surprised, not exactly. He didn't look pleased, either; more a sort of combination of wary and uncomfortable that Charles knew he'd have to work hard to counteract. Once he'd regained his capacity to breathe, that was. 

Erik didn't seem to want to wait. He crossed his arms, looking at Charles sidelong, and said, "You didn't waste much time, did you?" 

Charles took a great lungful of air and tried to speak. "I spoke -- to Raven," he managed, his voice a little croaky but admirably coherent. Erik raised an eyebrow. 

"You spoke to Raven and suddenly this whole mess went away? You somehow took the knowledge of how fucked up I am out of my daughter's head? Charles, I --" 

"You're not," Charles cut him off, because that was the important part, that was the crux of it. "Look, Erik, she's shocked and confused and Raven wants to protect me because neither of them knows what this really is." 

Erik laughed shortly. "What: a perverted old man who can't stop thinking about a teenage boy? I'd say they know exactly what it is." 

"That's not true, and you know it." They were this close; Charles wasn't about to let this be ripped from his hands. "Let me in, Erik. Please. We need to talk." 

And there it was, for one second, that fleeting look that always crossed Erik’s features shortly before he’d give in. It was obvious that he was more than torn over this, and Charles felt triumphant as he caught the desperate glimmer in the other’s eyes. _Almost_ …

But then Erik sighed as he tightened his grip on the door, his expression hardened. He’d made up his mind. “I’m sorry, Charles. I don’t think I can do this.”

“What?” He couldn’t believe his ears.

“Not right now,” Erik clarified with a subtle yet strained smile. “Give me some time to…digest this mess.”

“Erik, _please_...”

Charles knew that if he agreed to this now, he’d never hear from the other man again. Too bad Charles wasn’t a two-metre-giant who could easily push Erik aside and invade his flat. With a frustrated groan, he nodded with his eyes fixed to the ground. 

In the doorway, Erik hesitated. "Look, I just -- it's not you, all right? It's me, I'm the one who's let everyone down. Anya is punishing me, as well she should. I can't just...ignore that." 

Miserably, Charles ventured, "But if she understood…" 

Erik sighed. His grip on the door wavered a little. "Do she and Raven know each other?" 

"Only online," Charles said. "Because Raven thinks she's a goddamn PI." He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. Of course he knew Raven had to find out at some point, but couldn't she have waited just a little bit? Couldn't this have all come out after Charles was safely away at college? 

Erik drummed his fingers on the edge of the door. Charles could see the warring emotions on his face. "I'm tempted to ask you to speak to her, but how pathetic would that look, if I tried to get you to fight my battles for me?" Erik gave a short, unhappy laugh. "Charles, I don't know what to do." 

The look in Erik's eyes, when he lifted his head, was one of naked pain, and Charles knew in that moment that the idea that people reached a certain age and thereafter knew everything was bullshit. Erik was just as lost as Charles was. In a weird way, this gave him strength. 

"Let me in," Charles said again, firmly. "We'll figure everything else out from there. Just…" He held out his hands, and after a moment, Erik surged forward into them, half-lifting Charles off his feet in a crushing hug. For how long they stood there, holding each other, Charles couldn’t tell. All he could concentrate on at this moment, was the restless feeling that had Erik’s entire body shaking with it, as imperceptible as it might have been to someone who wasn’t as close to him as Charles.

“I’ve got you, Erik. I’m here,” Charles repeated over and over again, like a mantra, in a soothing voice he didn’t know he could muster. The other man only held on tighter to him as Charles stroked up and down his neck, raked his fingers through Erik’s hair, and pressed kisses to the curve of his neck and his shoulder.

It was a fascinating thing to watch how eventually the tension slowly seeped out of Erik’s body. Not entirely, but enough for Charles to feel Erik relaxing against him, _into_ him. He couldn’t help but smile at that. Erik’s breathing slowed down, holding him in an embrace felt less stiff -- and Charles’s curiosity to test the limits of this moment outweighed his worries as he gently moved with Erik towards the door.

“Charles…” he protested, weak.

“Let me take care of you. For now.”

The expected rebuff Erik usually liked to put up never came. Without so much as an unhappy grunt, he allowed Charles to drag him into his flat. And as the door silently fell shut behind them, Charles felt a little triumph; the first step had been taken.


	10. Chapter 10

Erik hadn't meant to let Charles into the flat at all, and now, as he tried to stretch his bare limbs without dislodging Charles from his chest, he remembered why. Charles was bloody impossible to say no to. Although, now that they were here, sleepy and sated, Erik couldn't bring himself to regret it. Charles was right: they weren't -- technically -- doing anything wrong, and the girls would come round. Hadn't Anya once said that age was just a number? He wondered if she would have felt differently if Charles had been a girl, or simply _not Charles_. 

The buzz of his phone startled him out of his thoughts. Erik fumbled for it quickly, wanting to stop the noise before it woke Charles, and cursed under his breath when he saw Anya's name on the screen. 

"Speak of the devil," he muttered. He didn't really want to have any kind of conversation with his daughter while Charles was still tangled naked in his arms, the two of them sticky with sweat and sex, but ignoring Anya's call didn't seem like a good idea either, not in the circumstances. Smoothing his hand across Charles's freckled shoulder, Erik sighed and accepted the call. 

"Hello?" 

A pause, and then a little sigh from Anya. "Hi, Papa. It's me." 

"I gathered that," Erik said dryly. "Caller ID, and all." 

"Yeah, I know." Anya sounded as if she wasn't sure how to proceed, but at least she wasn't screaming at him any more. "Look, I -- I'm sorry I yelled at you like that, I shouldn't have." 

Erik bit his lip, waiting for the 'but'. "It's okay. You were upset." 

"Still. It's just that I -- the way Raven put it to me, I was shocked."

“I can understand that, Liebling. I didn’t…” Erik nearly jumped out of his skin as he felt fingertips lightly grazing down his spine.

“Ja?”

Charles stirred behind him, moved closer as he made a contented sound at the back of his throat.

“I never wanted to upset you.”

“Erik?” Charles’s voice was barely above a whisper against his shoulder, his lips warm and tender against his skin. Erik released a shivery sigh.

“I know. I still can’t believe it, though. Are you sure this isn’t just some… misunderstanding?” Anya added with such a desperate hint in her voice that Erik ached to give in and flat out lie to her. She was his baby girl after all. How could he possibly do this to her? And yet…

“Come back to bed,” Charles sighed as he nuzzled Erik’s other ear and pressed a light kiss against the curve of his neck. One of his arms came around to encircle Erik’s waist, and his hand stroked from Erik’s stomach up to his chest and down again.

 _I'm already in bed_ Erik thought desperately, but didn't say. He stroked Charles's shoulder firmly with his palm, as if soothing a horse, and threw him a look to indicate the phone against his ear. To Anya he said, "No, love, you were right. Except it's -- it's not the way you think, you know?" He sighed. "You said yourself I don't really like many people. What you said about this on the phone, before you knew it was Charles -- that's still true. It just so happens that he's rather younger than you might have expected." 

Charles lifted his head, reacting to the sound of his name. Erik wondered how much of this he was getting with his high school German. Surely he'd at least realised who Erik was talking to? 

On the other end of the phone, Anya sighed in frustration. "If he was a girl, everyone would think you were having a mid-life crisis." 

"I know," Erik said, tugging on Charles's hair as the boy shifted around in his arms. 

"Are you?" 

Erik thought about that for a minute, and felt surprised by how sure he was when he said, "No. In fact, I think I'm having a mid-life revelation." 

At that, his daughter let out a low hum. Whether it was a positive sign or not, he couldn’t tell. With Magda, that sound tended to mean bad things. "You're not going to get arrested, are you? The Americans are… special about ages of consent." 

The thought of his daughter speaking to him about -- _that_ \-- made Erik cringe a little, but he'd brought this upon himself. He reassured her, "No, not in New York. That part's fine. And we're not -- I mean, I'd very much like Charles to stay with me, but he'll be off to college soon. I won't hold him down." 

He could almost hear Anya biting her lip pensively. "You just...want to see where it goes." 

"Yes," Erik said, relieved. Beside him, Charles nuzzled his shoulder and murmured in his ear: "What are you saying about me? I rather think you _should_ hold me down." Charles pushed a knee playfully between Erik's and Erik flushed bright red. 

"Papa, who's that?" 

Erik prayed to all that was holy that she'd only heard the tone of voice, and not the words. "Oh, um -- it's Charles, darling." 

"Oh god, _please_ tell me I didn't interrupt anything," Anya said, and Erik _knew_ she was trying hard not to come across as too judgemental. The little tilt in her voice, however, betrayed her.

"No, no," he reassured her hastily. "We were just...talking. Charles came over to talk about this." Which was true, as far as it went. 

"Aha," said Anya. Erik supposed that would have to suffice. 

“Well, anyway, Schätzchen, it’s still early here.”

“You’d like to sleep, right?”

“...Yes.”

 _He stayed overnight_ hung between them, unsaid and dangerous, and it made Erik’s throat feel too tight. It was a small relief that Anya decided to take mercy on him and didn’t say it.

“Well, um, sleep tight. I’ll call you again when I hear from any of the colleges. Should happen this week, I think.”

“Please, do that.”

He stared at his phone after Anya had hung up, and it took all of Charles’s persuasiveness to make him relax and lie down again. While Charles wrapped himself once more around Erik with all of his limbs, clinging like a possessive octopus, Erik’s mind replayed that phone call over and over again. Had she forgiven him? How was she dealing with it? _What was she thinking?_

“Stop mulling it over, Erik. There’s no use in crying over spilled milk.”

He turned his head to look at the boy, and was greeted by a sad little smile. Charles lightly cupped his jaw, then pressed a kiss to his lips.

“I know it’s a terrible situation with my stupid sister and Anya. But we can’t change it, can we?”

“I suppose not.”

Charles’s thumb stroked his cheekbone, slow and soothing. “They’ll get used to it. Eventually. Besides,” he added with a crooked smile, “I find it _awfully_ sexy when you speak German. You should do that more often. Teach me a thing or two.”

Erik smiled despite himself. "You're an odd one. German isn't known for being a sexy language." 

"It should be," Charles said, shrugging. Then he sighed and pushed his face against Erik's chest. "I thought about keeping up with it at college, getting good enough to speak to you in German without you laughing at me. Then I remembered nobody's actually offered me a scholarship yet, so you might be stuck with me for a while." 

Erik combed his fingers through Charles's hair, buying himself a moment to steady his voice. A jealous little part of him had flared up at Charles's words: if Charles didn't get a scholarship, he'd have to stay where he was -- the lawyers, after Sharon's death, had worked out that there was a hell of a lot more money in the Xavier funds than Sharon had thought; maybe she hadn't known it was there. But not enough, really, for Charles to maintain his house and his lifestyle _and_ go to a good university. So he'd have to stay here with Erik. 

Except that of course Charles wanted, needed to go to college. As Erik had just promised Anya, he couldn't and wouldn't hold Charles back. If this thing between them was really meant to go anywhere, it would survive Charles making the transition through studenthood into his twenties. 

"You'll get one," Erik said, and he meant it. "Your applications are all in; your grades are brilliant. And aren't you a legacy candidate at Harvard? Your father went there, after all. I'd be very surprised if they didn't offer you a full whack of money." 

Charles made a non-committal noise. "I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch," he said. 

Erik knew how Charles felt. It was hard to be certain of anything, however strong the probability, before it was confirmed. "Don't think about it now," he said, pressing a kiss to Charles's brow. "Everything will be all right, I promise. But it's time to go back to sleep." 

*

The news came unexpectedly, even though Erik was aware that he should have known better than to be surprised. Charles was a bright young man. A rejection would have been an idiotic move as any university and college would have killed for such a student. The very likely chance of Charles being offered a scholarship, even multiple ones from different schools, had always been dangling over Erik’s head and their relationship (he still wasn’t sure what to call it) like a Damocles sword.

And yet, he still felt as though someone had pulled the rug out from under his feet when Charles came jumping into his apartment, _ErikErikErikErikErikErik_ , and pushed several letters into his face.

"All right, all right, what's this?" He made himself laugh as he caught Charles by the arms and held him still, but the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach belied the look of mild amusement on his face. He knew what this was. He knew he should be happy for Charles, and a huge part of him was proud -- and yet. 

"Scholarships, Erik," Charles beamed, pressing a sloppy kiss to Erik's cheek and then collapsing back onto the settee, still grinning from ear to ear. Almost dropping his pile of papers in his haste, he proceeded to lay them out on the table. "An offer from Yale; no scholarship, I'm afraid, so no go, but it's still flattering to be accepted. Harvard --" Charles bit his lip on a grin. "Full ride." 

"I told you so," Erik said, letting the pride for a moment outweigh his own inner conflict. "You're brilliant, Charles. They _should_ be paying you, instead of the other way around." 

"Well, maybe so," Charles said, "but I haven't decided I'm going there just yet, have I?" 

"Haven't you?" asked Erik, mildly surprised. Harvard had always been Charles's goal if he couldn't afford to go to Oxford without scholarship, after all. (For Anya -- Erik had checked -- Oxford would have been cheap. But that was the EU. American students were another story.) And it wasn't too far to Harvard, about two hundred miles. In American terms, that was nothing. 

If Charles had to go anywhere, Erik would rather he was at Harvard than -- than at some bloody place in Texas or somewhere. Please God, Erik thought fervently, don't let him have been offered some amazing package by the University of Texas. 

"I'll _probably_ go to Harvard," Charles allowed, and Erik let out a breath. "I was just saying, there are other options! MIT, for example: full ride." 

MIT, in the same bloody town as Harvard. Erik swelled with relief and hugged Charles impulsively. "I'm sure whatever you choose, they'll be glad to have you," he said firmly. And he believed it.

That was, until the day of Charles’s graduation from high school came, which was sooner than Erik had been anticipating. Somehow the last few months of the year had rushed up on them both. 

Charles had asked him to attend the ceremony, and while Erik had his qualms about it, he went anyway, not feeling he could say no. After all, without Sharon, Charles had no family, only Raven to watch him go through this rite of passage. Still, it felt very strange sitting there among all those proud parents, people _his age_ who were there for their children. The creeping feeling of guilt and disgust with himself crept up his spine -- and it certainly didn’t help that Raven was sitting next to him, quietly judging him the whole time.

Could he blame her?

No, not really.

He’d be just as wary, just as suspicious if Anya suddenly showed up at his doorstep with someone his age in tow, and declared they were a couple. The terrible feeling in the pit of Erik’s stomach only worsened over the course of the ceremony as he watched those parents kiss and hug their children, and here he was, not sure as to how to approach Charles in front of all these people. Some of them had been there, after all, when Erik had come to pick him up at that godawful school party; doubtless they'd been just as curious then, and this only made it worse. 

Charles seemed just as uncertain about this. There was a second where he stopped right in front of Erik, looking as though he was aiming for a hug and a kiss, until he shot a wary glance at Raven next to Erik’s side, and then went to embrace her first. Erik swallowed down the bitterness, knowing Charles was only doing the best he could with an awkward situation. One day, when they were older, this would seem less odd -- if they were still together then. 

Erik pushed down that thought, and went back to the previous one. A man in his fifties with a partner in his twenties -- for better or worse, it wasn't that unusual, even if it was usually a second marriage to a beautiful girl. Gay men often had huge age differences in their relationships, but Erik didn't really move much in those circles. No: he and Charles would just have to buffet their way through these waves until they all subsided, and then they'd see what was left washed up on the shore. All he knew was that he wanted to be here to support Charles, and so he shook Charles's hand and clapped him on the shoulder, acting all the world like a friendly uncle, and catching Charles's eye to let him know: _we're being cautious_. 

Charles smiled gratefully, and grasped Erik back in answer. If anyone asked, Erik decided, they'd just say Erik was a family friend, 'almost like an uncle'. Erik had never been above telling a well-placed lie if it would make things easier for him. It was none of their business what he was to Charles, anyway. They only wanted to make gossip and scandal out of it, and Erik wasn't about to facilitate that. After today, Charles would never have to see these people again. 

So, they sat through the post-ceremony lunch and drinks (actual champagne -- this _was_ a private school) and smiled blandly at anyone who approached, giving nothing away. The particularly curious looks were met with a glare from Erik, which tended to have the desired effect. Raven, if nothing else, seemed relieved that Erik and her brother had opted for discretion, rather than creating a scene. As if they would have, but clearly Raven didn't know Erik well enough yet. Charles might have been inclined to take the high road sometimes, uneasy about telling any sort of lie, but in this situation, he seemed in line with Erik entirely. Their business was their own, and everybody else could just fuck off.

By the end of the day, all Erik wanted to do was to crawl into his bed and sleep for days. It had been more than exhausting to try and pretend that he and Charles weren’t more to each other than friends, perhaps relatives even. Which wasn’t the worst part of this whole farce. The thing that had taken an emotional toll on Erik were the worries at the back of his mind, always niggling at him and whispering into his already paranoid, anxiety-ridden conscience that _surely_ someone would see those lovebites on Charles’s neck, and just know that Erik was secretly fucking the boy frequently. There had been a moment when he had noticed Raven watching them both as he and Charles had been exchanging a tender look -- her expression had made him feel sick in his stomach. From that moment on, he had tried to keep a distance and Charles, thankfully, had understood it.

“Do you want me to take you home?” he asked nonetheless when it was time for them to leave the party. Raven shot a wary glance at her brother, who looked completely lost for a moment. Erik knew that, under different circumstances, Charles would have told him off for even asking in the first place since Erik knew the answer anyway. But now…

“I think we’re good,” Raven answered and thus cut off Charles just when he was about to speak.

He and Charles exchanged another look. Charles mouthed a quiet _Sorry_ , and Erik conceded defeat with a sigh.

Once he got home, there was at least a message from Charles on his phone waiting for him.

_Thanks for putting up with this today. It meant a lot to me. I love you._

In the darkness of his bedroom, Erik smiled despite himself. They had never really said it to one another before as it had always been more or less than understood that the attraction between them was more than just lust -- after all, there had to be something special here for all the stress and disapproval to be worth it. Perhaps, Erik mused as he turned to lie on his side, this day hadn’t been that terrible after all. Maybe there was a future for him and Charles.


	11. Chapter 11

The last long summer between high school and college was one Erik could still remember himself -- it had seemed endless to him, just a stumbling block between him and his independence. And yet this time, as he and Charles tried to pack as much as possible into the last few weeks before Harvard, it seemed as if time was slipping away at the speed of light. Charles was eighteen now, but it was surprising how little difference that made. That he was no longer in high school felt more momentous. Erik took two weeks off work, the rest of his vacation for the year. He ordinarily wouldn't have taken such a large amount of holiday all in one chunk, but as Charles said, "What else are you saving it for, eh?" 

Which, Erik had to admit, was fair enough. 

Their two weeks together, like the rest of Charles's vacation, seemed shorter than they had any right to be, but Erik was glad of them. This, waking with Charles in his arms after a long evening of crappy films and cuddling on the sofa -- this was what Erik wanted, this taste of what it might be like to _live_ with Charles. It seemed almost cruel that he should be experiencing this right before it was about to be ripped from under his nose. But whenever Charles sensed a certain look creeping onto Erik's face, he'd press his nose into Erik's neck and bite the skin there and remind him, "Cambridge isn't far, Erik, not really. We'll see each other plenty." 

And Erik would nod, and cuddle Charles closer; and then a treacherous part of his brain would wonder how Charles would feel if his room-mate was cute, or if a hot young guy hit on him at a party in his first week. And then he'd make himself pin Charles back against the settee and kiss him, partly to distract himself from his own maudlin thoughts, and partly just to give Charles something to remember. Something he'd want to hold onto. 

The day of Charles’s departure came sooner than expected -- sooner than Erik had dreaded, for that matter -- and Erik found himself most reluctant to let go. Before The Day Which Shall Not Be Named, he had offered to help Charles move. The boy would be living in a dorm room, so there was at least no moving of furniture involved but Charles did show, as Erik had found out after a while, some hoarder tendencies when it came to hoarding books. Of course he wanted to take at least half of his library of Biology books with him, and who was Erik to refuse such a wish?

The drive to Harvard would have been more pleasant or _at least_ bearable if they had been alone. Sadly, Erik thought begrudgingly with a glance at the rearview mirror, Raven had decided to accompany them, and now she and Charles were chatting animatedly about the courses he’d be taking soon and how bloody _exciting_ his life was going to be. Far away from their hometown. Far, far away from miserable old Erik who’d be celebrating his 48th birthday alone at home with nothing but his bitterness and jealousy to keep him company.

It was difficult to keep those dark thoughts away from him and Erik felt a pang of guilt when Charles seemed to catch notice of the sullen air that surrounded him, like a dark cloud hovering above their heads and overshadowing the joyful adventure that Charles was going to go through. He didn’t ask Erik if he was okay or what was wrong. He merely gave Erik’s hand holding the gear stick a gentle squeeze, accompanied by a hopeful smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Well, at least he was better at covering up his emotions than Erik.

"It's going to be great, Charles," Erik said, making his voice light as if it could dispel the atmosphere that had settled over the car. "Going to university is a special time in everyone's life." 

"Has Anya made a decision yet?" Charles prompted, and Erik thanked him mentally for changing the subject, even if only subtly, away from Erik's own dark thoughts. 

"She has indeed," Erik said, "or I think so, anyway. Last I heard, she'd settled on an American university -- which, nevertheless is practically as far away from me by plane as Germany is." 

In the back seat, Raven laughed. "You can't blame a kid for wanting to be equally far away from _both_ parents." 

Erik's eyebrows drew together, unsure if that was an insult or not. Charles, clearly equally unsure, shot Raven a worried look, but she went on: "Still, way easier for her to visit when she's in the states, right? I'd kind of like to meet her." 

It was a peace-offering, Erik knew, but it still made his chest unclench a little bit. A stilted peace offering was better than none at all. 

"The two of you together would raise hell," Charles muttered under his breath, and Erik actually smiled. 

"I can picture that," he said. 

When they actually pulled up within the grounds of the university, there was too much going on for any more idle contemplation. Erik found himself being piled with suitcases and boxes and sent unceremoniously up a flight of stairs, laden like a pack animal, to what was to be Charles's room. When he at last managed to dump his armful and turn around, Charles was there behind him with a much lighter load and a rueful smile. 

"Only another two loads," he said apologetically. Erik rolled his eyes. 

"You're lucky you have me," he growled, and Charles laughed aloud, glanced to the side only for the merest second before he leaned in and kissed Erik's mouth. 

"Yes I am," he said. "Now, more boxes." 

It hadn't been much of a kiss, but still, it clung to Erik as he found his way back down the stairs. The building was full of what he presumed to be a brigade of dads carrying boxes; Charles could just as easily have passed Erik off as his own father or older male relative, drawn no attention to them. The fact that he'd kissed Erik in public like that...it was hopeful, somehow. If Erik had been afraid that Charles would show up at Harvard and immediately launch into a new life as a single bachelor as soon as his decrepit old boyfriend was out of state, well… 

"I can hear you thinking," Charles said, poking Erik in the side. "I'm not going to forget about you the moment you leave, you know. Much as you might _wish_ I would, you're stuck with me." 

Sometimes, Erik thought, the boy could be painfully perceptive. "I wasn't thinking that," Erik muttered, but Charles only smiled and headed back up towards his room with a new load of books. 

Erik knew himself well enough to anticipate a heated jealousy of whoever ended up sharing a room with Charles -- whether he was a muscle-bound jock, a sensitive nerd, or something in between -- but still, it was good to know that Charles was a step ahead of him on these matters. Charles might change his mind, Erik knew that, told himself so over and over, but if he did, well -- it wouldn't be because Erik hadn't given him a fair chance to find himself.

It was a relief nevertheless that Charles’s roommate was apparently going to be an awkward-looking lanky boy who seemed quite taken by Raven the moment she had walked into the room, loaded with a heavy box of books. Erik smiled despite himself as he witnessed the boy, Hank, immediately jump into action and offered her to take over, even though he tripped over his too big feet in his haste to support the box in Raven’s arms before it’d drop to the floor. He caught the glance Charles directed at him along with a crooked smile. Erik shrugged with a roll of his eyes in return and resisted the feeling of giving him another fond kiss, now that his worries and stressed nerves were soothed.

As inevitable the departure was, it was not easiest in the slightest to actually _let go_ , turn around and drive away. Raven, thank God, was mindful enough to drag Hank out of the room with some inconspicuous question about the campus and thus left Charles and Erik enough time to realise that the moment had come for them to get used to the idea that they won’t be constantly physically together anymore for at least three years.

“You’re going to visit me, right?” Charles said as soon as the door had closed behind them. Erik would have almost been fooled by the confidence and the humour in his voice, if it hadn’t been for the slight wetness in his eyes.

“No, Charles, I shall abandon you entirely until you return with a doctorate degree. I thought that was understood,” he deadpanned with a dry smile which softened instantly at the sound of Charles’s choked up laughter.

“You’re a dick.”

“Is that how you talk to your elders?”

“Just you because you don’t deserve any better. I _know_ for a fact that you can be more wicked and immature than me any time, Erik. You don’t fool me.”

With gentle hands, Charles ran his hands down Erik’s chest, straightening his crumpled shirt, and accepted Erik’s kiss without any other sort of protest or cheeky remark.

Next thing Erik knew, was that his shirt landed with a dull thud on the ground.

*

As they finally emerged from the building, Raven was already waiting for them. Hank was with her, still, and they both were chatting animatedly about God knew what while sipping from coffee cups. With hawk’s eyes, Erik noticed that Raven was leaning against his car; if it hadn’t been for Charles’s hand squeezing his, he’d have berated her in an instant.

“You two took your time, haven’t you?” Raven called out to them as they came closer. Charles huffed out an awkward cough in a weak attempt to hide his stupid smile. Erik merely raised an eyebrow at her.

“It doesn’t seem to me as though you’re desperate to get home, Raven. Looks like you found some company yourself.”

She and Hank exchanged a glance. Both found they were blushing. And she muttered out a, “Oh, do shut up.”

“She reminds me more of Anya than I’m comfortable with,” Erik whispered to Charles, who nodded.

"I can't even imagine what it'll be like when they get together. In fact, I dread to think." 

Erik laughed, the sound of it startled out of him. "You think they were serious about that?" 

Charles shrugged. "It'd be a good new way to torture both of us; do you really think they'd let that go to waste?" 

"That's a very sound observation," Erik said, wrapping an arm around Charles's shoulder and pulling him close. 

"I'm a very clever boy," Charles said, and winked, which earned him a smack on the arm from Erik and an answering grin. 

"Well, I hope you're clever enough to be able to manage the bus from here back to New York every other weekend." 

"You aren't going to drive here after work every day to see me? Erik, I thought better of you." Charles pouted, then began crooning, " _I drove all niiiiiiiiiiiiiiight to get to youuuuuuu --_ " 

"Roy Orbison is turning in his grave," Erik said darkly. "Honestly though, Charles, I want you to have a great time here. I want you to do well. That's more important than any -- obligation to me." Even as he said the words, Erik could feel his chest puffing up with self-aware altruism (which, he supposed, made it not terribly altruistic at all, but he was still proud of himself for getting the sentiment out). "If you ever need to stay here, don't want to come, have a better offer, just tell me, okay?" 

"Oh, Erik." Charles's blue eyes softened. "I appreciate what you're saying, I really do. I know you don't want anyone to think you're tying me down. And I know you won't take no for an answer, so: okay. I accept what you're saying. But honestly, I can't imagine anything I'd have to do where I wouldn't want to see you too." 

Charles reached out a hand, and Erik, regardless of Raven hovering nearby, took it and pulled Charles close. "See you next weekend, then," he murmured into Charles's hair. 

*  
(four years later) 

"Hank!" Raven's voice was strident as she stormed into the front room of Charles and Hank's shared suite -- shared for only a few hours longer, at this stage. "Hank! I know you think running chronically late is cute, but I swear to God, if you don't come out here right this second with your tie done up --" 

"I'm coming, I'm coming --" Hank, looking rather frazzled but still as lovestruck as ever, scuttled out of the bedroom and into Raven's waiting arms. She allowed him a quirked smile before she began dismantling his attempts at a necktie and retying it. 

"Poor Hank," Charles laughed, and Raven shot him a look. 

"You wait till Erik gets going on yours. Which will probably be about as soon as Anya's stopped fussing with his and let him leave the room." 

Charles would have protested, but Raven was right, of course. They'd all flown across country the previous week for Anya's graduation, and both Erik and Charles had had their ties fussed to within an inch of their lives, while Erik growled things about Anya being just like her mother. It was still surprising to Charles how they all managed to get on like this, now, a haphazard, unconventional family group. It had taken a couple of years, but they'd got here eventually -- something he knew Erik had never dared to hope for. 

A sudden, sharp knock on the door interrupted him in his musings; Raven gave Charles a look as if to say _It’s not going to open itself, is it?_

“I feel like this thing is strangling me,” Erik muttered the moment Charles opened the door. With a disgruntled look on his face, he kept pulling at the knot of his tie while Anya swatted his hands away every five seconds as she berated him for it in German. Years of experience had taught Charles what exactly she was saying, and Erik shot him a pained look, begging him to put an end to it...but Charles allowed himself to enjoy the scene before him without interfering. That was, until Raven’s voice piped up from behind.

“Well, it’s not _my_ graduation so I don’t really care whether or not we’re late. But I’d appreciate it if either you lot moved out of the way so at least Hank can get his certificate, or you’ll come along. _Now._ ”

It was the sort of tone that brooked no argument, and Charles and Erik exchanged a look over the girls' heads. 

"Womenfolk," Erik muttered, and Charles stifled a laugh, turning it swiftly into a cough when Raven glared at him. 

"Come on, Charles, you know you guys would never get anywhere if it wasn't for us telling you what to do and when to do it. Okay, time to go." 

She looped an arm through Hank's, and Charles felt a little rush of affection for the two of them. Even now, Hank still looked awestruck to be with her, as well he might -- they were not an obvious couple, Hank so lanky and awkward, Raven now a very capable and beautiful young woman. But they were a good match. On Raven's other side, Anya finally relinquished her father and caught Raven up, and the two of them shared a grin. 

"I'm still not sure we should ever have let them gang up on us," Erik said under his breath. Charles looked up at him. 

"You know," he said, apropos of nothing but the way Erik looked in that suit, "I've said it before, but I'll say it again: you're the handsomest man I've ever seen in real life. I'm proud to have you with me." 

Erik went pink, but Charles could see he was pleased. "Oh, really? You're not going to lean away and pretend I'm your embarrassing uncle?" 

The tone was jocular, but even after four years, Charles knew there was still a hint of truth in it, some restless anxiety Erik couldn't quiet, despite the fact that everyone here had known about Charles's boyfriend from the get-go; despite the fact that some of them had met him. The first time Charles had caught a group of girls giggling behind their hands over his handsome older partner, it had certainly led to an interesting (and proud) evening for him. But Erik needed to be reassured, and Charles was happy to offer that. 

"No," he said, and slipped his arm into Erik's in an echo of the way Raven, a few steps ahead, was clutching Hank possessively. "This time, my darling, everyone's going to know I'm on your arm. Or you're on mine." He leaned up, and Erik met him for a kiss, covering his embarrassment with a little cough as he pulled away. 

"Well, come on then. We'd better get a move on if you actually want there still to be a ceremony to show me off at." 

Despite Raven's protestations, they made it to the ceremony in time. Speeches were made, hats were thrown; in many ways it was much like that last ceremony all those years ago, but in others, this was a world away. This time, the ceremony marked the real beginning of Charles's adult life, the end of anything that could make Erik think of him as anything less than _grown-up._ And he held onto Erik's hand, led him over afterwards to the champagne and the strawberries and told anyone who would listen that _yes, this is Erik, my partner_. 

Nothing in life was ever certain; Charles knew that well enough. His experience had taught him as much before he was ten years old. But standing here with his sister and his best friend, with Erik and Anya, Charles felt a sense of belonging that had never really been part of his childhood. Once upon a time it had been only him and Raven against the world. This may not have been the way he'd expected to go about changing that, and what was to come next was still anyone's guess. But as he squeezed Erik's hand, and looked up to meet his smile, he knew that for now, at least, he would be approaching life with Erik by his side. And that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the last chapter, guys -- thanks for reading and supporting us!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover art for "Something About Us"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4179486) by [avictoriangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avictoriangirl/pseuds/avictoriangirl)




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